Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered on Wednesday next at Seven o'clock.

FIFE COUNTY COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Sex Discrimination

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider the publication of a White Paper outlining the manner in which he proposes to deal with the problems of sex discrimination in all its aspects.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): Yes, Sir. I intend to publish a White Paper announcing my proposals for securing equal status for women.

Mr. Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend give an indication when the White Paper will be published, and will he give an assurance that the proposals outlined in it will be much more ambitious and comprehensive than those in the previous Government's White Paper?

Mr. Jenkins: I am unable to give an absolutely definite time regarding publication, but I would think that it would be within a matter of two months or, at

the most, three months, and possibly during the recess. I certainly hope that the proposals will be comprehensive and reasonably ambitious.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Has my right hon. Friend seen the early-day motion in my name and in the name of some of my hon. Friends? It is an all-party early-day motion. Would my right hon. Friend like to comment on it?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. Perhaps my hon. Friend would care to give some indication of what the early-day motion says.

Death Certification and Coroners (Report)

Dr. Winstanley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he intends to take with regard to the report of his Department's Committee on Death Certification and Coroners which was published in 1971; and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): We are considering the report, and my right hon. Friend hopes to be able to make a statement soon.

Dr. Winstanley: Are there not at least two urgent matters arising from the report which require action? First, is it not time that we had some clarification of the law relating to death certification in cases involving human tissue transplants? Secondly, is it not high time that we curbed the activities of certain of Her Majesty's coroners, who appear frequently to ignore the coroners' rules, often causing unnecessary distress to bereaved persons?

Dr. Summerskill: I agree that these are only two of the very important aspects of the report which are being considered. There were 114 recommendations in all, and different Government Departments are involved. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are in the final stages of consultation.

Mr. Waddington: May I remind the hon. Lady of the reply she gave to a Question from me on 2nd April? Will she remember that great distress can be caused to people as a result of the non-issue of death certificates? May I also


remind her of a case of a constituent of mine whose wife was killed by a hit-and-run driver? The constituent could not be furnished with a death certificate and for years and years was unable to get benefits from the insurance companies. This is a very urgent matter.

Dr. Summerskill: I appreciate the urgency, but many of these recommendations are controversial. There is by no means unanimous agreement on them. It is important that we get some agreement between Departments.

Police (Special Branch)

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will examine ways in which Special Branch activities can, in total, be made publicly accountable without damaging the security needs of individual operations.

Mrs. Colquhoun: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will examine ways in which Special Branch activities can, in total, be made publicly accountable without damaging the security needs of individual operations.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: Individual Special Branch officers are accountable for their actions in the same way as other police officers. I am ready to look into any general aspects which may concern hon. Members, although, as my hon. Friends recognise, individual operations must normally remain secret.

Mr. Bennett: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Most people are concerned that they have no idea of the range and scope of these activities, and they would like to know—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must ask a question.

Mr. Bennett: Will my right hon. Friend give us some idea how the public can tell what is the total expenditure on this sort of activity, year after year?

Mr. Jenkins: The Special Branch represents approximately 1 per cent. of the total size of the police force. Although figures are not kept of exactly what percentage of cost this represents, since the overwhelming proportion of the cost represents pay and allowances I would

think that it was approximately the same proportion.

Mr. Norman Fowler: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that with the increase in terrorism in this country it is essential to have a police intelligence organisation which can seek out terrorists before they strike? Does he not further agree that we rely heavily upon the Special Branch in this regard and that this is really no time for anyone to conduct a campaign against it?

Mr. Jenkins: I agree that the Special Branch performs a most valuable service—possibly as valuable as, or even more valuable and necessary than, at any time since its inception 90 years ago. I do not think this is a reason why my hon. Friend or others should not ask Questions which they think it appropriate to ask. I shall always endeavour to provide hon. Members and the House generally with such information as I think proper. At the same time, I certainly think that we owe a considerable debt to the Special Branch.

Mrs. Colquhoun: May I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply? Does he accept that there is considerable public disquiet about the erosion of democracy and public accountability today? Will he do all that he can to ensure that at least Members of this House are kept informed?

Mr. Jenkins: My hon. Friend's premise has possible interpretations in a number of different ways. As a broad statement, I accept it. I certainly accept that it is not only my desire but my duty to keep this House informed as far as I can.

Mr. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the two points raised in this Question are connected, namely, the importance of the Special Branch and the value of its work, and the desirability of opening it to public scrutiny, notwithstanding the need to protect individual operations? Does he recognise that in the past there has been a tendency to shroud it in secrecy, which is not in the interests of ensuring that there is public recognition of the work of the Special Branch?

Mr. Jenkins: What is desirable, and what I have always endeavoured to do, and will endeavour to do in future, is not to shroud a perfectly reputable and


normal branch of the police organisation in any undesirable secrecy, which only arouses suspicion. At the same time, I recognise that there are bound to be certain operations which have to be conducted confidentially or not at all.

Mr. Robert Taylor: Bearing in mind the many activities of the Special Branch, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has yet had the opportunity to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to posters which appeared in London in the early hours of this morning claiming that the police are responsible for the murder of the student who unfortunately died last week? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this is a most important point? Is he aware that it is stated on the poster that there is to be another demonstration this weekend? Is he further aware that one of his hon. Friends is named in the Morning Star today as being the principal speaker at the demonstration planned for this coming Saturday? If the attention of the right hon. Gentleman has not been drawn to the poster may I rectify that omission herewith and show him it—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member may not do that at Question Time.

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think it requires the activities of the Special Branch, or even the hon. Gentleman's poster-waving activities, to inform me of this. I was informed of it this morning. I am aware of the circumstances and I take note of them. I am also aware that the hon. Gentleman wished to put a certain question to me this afternoon on which it would not have been appropriate for me to take action, because under Section 3 of the Public Order Act 1936, and any other powers, I have no power to initiate a ban, only to respond to such a request from the Commissioner of Police or the chief police officer in any other area. No such request has been received and it would certainly be inappropriate in such circumstances for me to take action such as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Mr. Snape: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give as much information as is consistent with security about the nature and scale of the work of the Special Branch.

Mrs. Wise: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he is prepared to give relating to the nature and scale of the activities of the Special Branch.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: The Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police developed out of the Irish Bureau, set up in 1883 to deal with Fenian activity. Other forces in England and Wales now have their own Special Branches. Special Branch officers are police officers and are under the control of their chief officers, who are responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the preservation of public order in their areas.
Special Branches are mainly concerned with offences against the security of the State, with terrorist or subversive organisations, with certain protection duties, with keeping watch on seaports and airports and with making inquiries about aliens.

Mr. Snape: Will my right hon. Friend tell us how he can possibly equate that reply with a report on the activities of the Special Branch concerning the taking of photographs of nurses demonstrating against their scandalously low pay? Will he also tell the House whether the Special Branch was sufficiently efficient last Saturday, in Red Lion Square, as to take the names and particulars of those members of the National Front who paraded in paramilitary uniform through the square, in direct contravention of the Public Order Act 1936?

Mr. Jenkins: I am informed by the Chief Constable of Kent that no photographs were taken of the nurses' demonstration to which my hon. Friend refers. It is true, as is known, that Special Branch officers were present and that one, or perhaps more of them, had cameras. It is not outside the experience of most of my hon. Friends and Members of the House generally that demonstrations organised by the most reputable organisations, and begun with the most estimable of intentions, may be joined by those whose purposes are less benign. On this occasion no photographs were taken at all. As for the details of what happened on Saturday, I have already answered a Private Notice Question about that. If my hon. Friend likes to put down a Question dealing with the particular point he has in mind I shall endeavour to reply to it.

Mr. Farr: Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that where possible members of the Special Branch are equipped with British equipment? In particular, will he make sure that unless there is a very good reason to the contrary they use the very successful Webley and Scott police revolver, which is widely used by police forces throughout the world?

Mr. Jenkins: I congratulate the hon. Member upon having thought of a supplementary question which the Home Office—even with five Questions tabled dealing with the Special Branch—had not thought of. I cannot give him the specific assurance he asked for, but I will give him the general expression of my intention that whenever equipment is equally effective I hope that British equipment will be preferred.

Mrs. Wise: Reverting to the matters referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) about the nurses' demonstration, will my right hon. Friend tell the House what justification there was for the intervention of the Special Branch, which was widely reported in the Press, in the industrial dispute at Strachan's in Eastleigh?

Mr. Jenkins: The Special Branch has no interest in intervening—and no power to intervene—in trade disputes as such. It has no interest in trade unions as such. It is interested only in subversion and possible subversion. Subversion can come from a variety of quarters. I think that it is most important that the Special Branch should be neutral in its attitude to differences between trade unions and employers, between the members of different political parties, and others. The Chief Constable of Hampshire had reason to believe that public disorder might have resulted from the incident referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise). I can assure the House that this in no way detracts from the fact that the Special Branch will, as long as I have any general responsibility for it, maintain a general attitude of neutrality to those engaged in legitimate disputes. It is concerned solely with the activities of individuals who undermine the democratic party régime and not with intervening in any way between those who take different views as to how this power shall be exercised.

Sir K. Joseph: Although the Home Secretary is not responsible for the apparent campaign of some of his hon. Friends against both the police and the Special Branch—[Interruption.]—the right hon. Gentleman is not responsible—is he aware that most hon. Members and most members of the public will think it extremely odd that Members of this House at a demonstration on Saturday will give implicit support to people who practise provocation and violence against the democracy and peace of this country?

Mr. Jenkins: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong to hold that point of view. I do not think that he or any other hon. Member will doubt my determination to uphold the legitimate powers of the police in all its aspects. The fact that these Questions have appeared together is not, in my view, part of a campaign. It is because there was a desire to put down certain other Questions which the Table Office, in its wisdom and without consultation with me—which would have been quite inappropriate—decided to regard as being out of order. That has resulted in their concentration on today's Order Paper. It is important that we preserve a balance, that we give the police our confidence and that we sustain them strongly in their proper activities, but that we do not say that hon. Members may not ask Questions which they think appropriate.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Does my right hon. Friend accept that although he is personally responsible for the activities of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police it is his judgment and decision alone which should determine whether information sought by hon. Members which by its nature is secret should be supplied? Is that not a decision for the Home Secretary of the day and for no other authority?

Mr. Jenkins: Clearly the House has to apply the established rules that have been developed. It is then for me to decide, when Questions are tabled, how much information I can give.

Mr. Wells: Is the Home Secretary aware that his reply to the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) about the episode in my constituency and about the non-photography will give considerable comfort and support to the Kent


Police? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, further, that there are many elements fomenting trouble against the police and that we look to him to continue to give the police proper support?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes. Certainly I shall endeavour to continue my proper support—and I attach equal importance to the adjective and the noun.

Mr. Clemitson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to ensure that the training of Special Branch officers is such as to ensure they do not encourage the collection of material on legitimate political groups.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: It is generally understood in the police service that Special Branch officers should not concern themselves with the political activities of individuals except to the extent required in connection with security and public order.

Mr. Clemitson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he reiterate his belief in the good faith of hon. Members on the Government side of the House and stress that what we are concerned about is the defence of the freedom of individuals and legitimate organisations?

Mr. Jenkins: I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned, in their varying ways, with the freedom of the individual. I am sure that that applies to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Mather: Rather than holding public inquiries into the conduct of the police on such occasions as those that we have been discussing, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be much more to the point to hold a public inquiry into Communist-backed subversive organisations in this country, whether paramilitary or otherwise?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not really know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

Mr. Arthur Latham: Nor does the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Jenkins: The only suggestion that I have under consideration for a public inquiry into the activities which I think the hon. Gentleman is describing is about what happened last Saturday,

which I told the House on Monday was proposed and welcomed by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and which would be concerned equally with the activities of all those concerned in this regrettable incident.

Mr. Loughlin: I accept my right hon. Friend's contention that we should do everything possible to support the police, Special Branch or otherwise, in ensuring the maintenance of law and order, but is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a great deal of concern in many quarters about some of the activities of the Special Branch? Cases have been enumerated of photographs being taken of innocent people who were simply going along a road where a meeting was taking place. Is my right hon. Friend aware, further, that the activities of the Special Branch in attending meetings and in taking photographs are giving a great deal of concern to people who are also concerned about the freedom of the individual?

Mr. Jenkins: I would have no intention of forbidding the Special Branch to take photographs, even if I had that power. It is extremely valuable that photographs were taken of what took place in Kilburn High Road two weeks ago, for instance. It is very difficult to know who exactly is included in a photograph. We all have photograpths taken of ourselves when we hope that we are innocent and when we do not necessarily ask for the photographs to be taken. I am against any unreasonable use of the power of the camera by the Special Branch, but I am unconvinced—and I have denied specifically in one case which has been put to me that the camera ever was used—that it is used inappropriately.

Mr. Goodhart: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that if the public and Parliament are to be protected from terrorism it will be necessary to take more photographs, to tap more telephones, to open more letters and to recruit more informers, however disagreeable those activities may be?

Mr. Jenkins: That is rather an extreme and general statement. My concern is that we should have as effective security as we can. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman will achieve it by his generalised statements that we should do more of everything.

Shoplifting

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is yet ready to initiate an experimental scheme to monitor and control the incidence of shoplifting in supermarkets, in accordance with the proposals made to him by the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington; and if he would make a statement.

Dr. Summerskill: My noble Friend, the Minister of State, has written to the hon. Member.

Mr. Adley: Does the Minister accept the point that her noble Friend has made in his letter, namely, that he understands the problem but thinks that carrying out an experiment might be administratively difficult? Does she agree that unless we have an experiment we cannot possibly assess the difficulties which may or may not follow if the proposals which have been made can be given wider circulation?

Dr. Summerskill: I accept the fact that the Home Office Standing Committee on Crime Prevention which looked into the suggestion did not think that the hon. Member's experiment was feasible. The committee includes representatives of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the National Chamber of Trade. However, it is sympathetic towards a similar scheme—the provision of parking areas for shopping bags in new premises.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not curious that the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), who belongs to a party dedicated to the sanctity of private property, should now be regarded as the best friend of every shoplifting sneak thief in the country? Why does he always come to their defence?

Lord Longford (Prison Visits)

Mr. Moonman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many visits have been paid by Lord Longford to Her Majesty's Prisons since January 1971; how many interviews he had with Myra Hindley and with Maxine Croft; whether he had any meetings with Patricia Cairns; and what instructions apply in relation to future applications to visit these prisoners.

Dr. Summerskill: There is no central record of the number of visits made to prisoners by Members of either House of Parliament but records are kept of visits to individual prisoners. These show that Myra Hindley has been visited by Lord Longford on 13 occasions since January 1971. There is no record that he ever visited Maxine Croft, or of any meeting with Patricia Cairns in Holloway while she was employed as a prison officer there. My right hon. Friend does not propose to make any changes in the arrangements for authorising visits to prisons by Members of either House of Parliament.

Mr. Moonman: The House will want to study that reply with great care. What are the rules which govern visits to prisoners by peers and Members of Parliament, particularly when the private conversations are then revealed, as Lord Longford revealed them recently in a whole chapter in his book relating to his meetings with the Moors murderess? Should not this practice be condemned?

Dr. Summerskill: A Member of Parliament may visit or interview a prisoner only on the express authority of the Secretary of State unless he receives a valid visiting order direct from a prisoner or is a justice of the peace. As to the conditions on which he visits a prison, it is assumed that a Member can be trusted to use with discretion and propriety any information that he gains in the course of his visit. Facilities were always granted to Lord Longford in his capacity as a Member of the House of Lords who had an interest in the welfare and rehabilitation of individual prisoners.

Mr. Tinn: I accept the necessity for Members of the House of Commons to have access to prisons; but I am somewhat disturbed to learn of the privileges extended to Members of the House of Lords, bearing in mind that a constituent of mine, who wished to have access to certain prisoners to investigate the circumstances of the death of his son, has been denied such access. I should have thought that if a privileged occasion existed that would have been it.

Dr. Summerskill: I shall certainly reconsider the conditions of access to prisons by peers. The situation at the moment is that Members of Parliament and peers can visit prisoners, but only


with the express authority of the Secretary of State.

Mr. Tapsell: Is not a peer just as much a Member of Parliament as any Member of this House?

Illegal Immigrants

Mr. Cormack: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many illegal immigrants have been detected in each of the last three years; and whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): Eighty-four illegal entrants against whom action could be taken were detected during 1971; 59 during 1972; and 258 during 1973. The latter figure includes foreign nationals, for whom records were kept for the first time in 1973.

Mr. Cormack: I thank the Minister of State for that reply. Is he satisfied with the degree of co-operation and coordination between our authorities and those on the Continent in tackling this serious problem?

Mr. Lyon: Yes. We are constantly seeking ways to improve our checks against evasion and illegal smuggling. We have a department which is co-operating with authorities not only in Europe but all over the world.

Mr. Arthur Latham: Does my hon. Friend accept that many hon. Members on this side of the House resent intensely the remarks made a few minutes ago by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) speaking from the Opposition Front Bench? Will my hon. Friend—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must relate his supplementary question to the Question.

Mr. Latham: Indeed I am, Mr. Speaker. I want to go on from that point to ask my hon. Friend whether he will give an assurance that any investigations conducted under this heading will be made by the legitimate police force, which is answerable to the Home Secretary, who is then accountable to this House, not by private security firms with which the right hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front Bench is or has been associated?

Sir K. Joseph: rose—

Mr. Lyon: Perhaps I may answer my hon. Friend. I must leave the right hon. Gentleman to deal with the personal matters relating to him.
In our security checks for the prevention of illegal smuggling and illegal entrance we rely upon the immigration service and, to some extent, the police. We do not rely upon any private security organisation at all.

Mr. Grieve: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the scope of the international organisations responsible for illegal immigration, which has been disclosed in a number of criminal trials, indicates an operation on a vast scale between the Indian subcontinent and this country, and shows that far larger numbers of illegal immigrants are reaching this country than have been disclosed by the official figures that he gave this afternoon? Does he consider that the amnesty that Her Majesty's Government have granted to illegal immigrants is a great encouragement to illegal immigration? Will he therefore reconsider this policy?

Mr. Lyon: I do not agree with anything that the hon. and learned Gentleman said.
It is clear from the figures produced by both the previous Government and this Government that the number of those who come to the notice of the authorities is so small that the likelihood of this hidden iceberg, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman constantly refers, is remote. The fact that he goes on asserting time and again that there is this vast inflow is merely designed to inflame race relations in this country rather than to get at the root of the problem that we must tackle.

Mr. Grieve: May I ask the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have a debate.

Mr. Fernyhough: May I ask my hon. Friend to tell us how many of those illegal immigrants were white, how many were coloured, how many came from the United States, and how many came from Europe before we joined the EEC?

Mr. Lyon: My right hon. Friend will have to put down a Question before I


can possibly give the answer that he requires. I have to deal daily with those who are deported under the law as it exists. I find that they come from all parts of the world, and that they are of different colours.

Mr. Grieve: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that my question was designed to inflame racial prejudice—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order. It is a point of argument.

Mr. Lane: Is it not obvious that the Government's amnesty for a past category of illegal immigrants may have the effect, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) said, of encouraging more illegal immigration in future? Will the Minister of State give an absolute assurance that the Government will vigorously pursue all the measures to counter illegal immigration that the last Government were developing?

Mr. Lyon: It will not have that effect, because it was designed to cover only a very limited number of illegal entrants who were dealt with under the retrospective legislation of the 1971 Act. We are increasing our checks against any kind of illegal immigration. In general, those who evade immigration laws will be sent back.

Sir K. Joseph: Am I entitled, on a point of order—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall rule on this matter. I should prefer the right hon. Gentleman to raise his point of order at the end of Question Time.

Later—

Sir K. Joseph: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Latham) suggested that I am or was connected with a security firm. Although I can see nothing discreditable in such a connection, I wish to say to the House that I am not and was not so connected.

Mr. Latham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In my anxiety to convince you, Mr. Speaker, that my supplementary question was in order, I inadvertently used the definite article. I did not intend to say" the right hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Front

Bench "but" right hon Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench". I apologise to the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph).

Mr. Grieve: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the course of his answer to my supplementary question on Question No. 12—the Question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack)—the Minister of State, Home Office said that my question was designed to inflame racial prejudice. My question was designed to do nothing of the sort. I do not expect the Minister to agree with me, and I think that he is wrong, but it is wrong of him to impute that my question had base and criminal motives, and I ask him to withdraw.

Mr. Lyon: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. On reflection, which I began in the middle of my answer to the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, which caused me to stop, I recognise that I did the hon. Gentleman an injustice. I think that instead of "designed" I should have said "calculated".

James Hanratty

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now set up an inquiry into the procedures leading to the arrest and conviction of James Hanratty for murder, in view of new evidence which has been sent to him.

Mr. Bates: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the new evidence which is now available, he will now set up a public inquiry into the case of James Hanratty.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have considered very carefully all the representations which have been made to me, but I am not at present persuaded that it would be right to institute a public inquiry into the case. I intend, however, to invite a Queen's Counsel to make an independent assessment of the representations and of any other relevant material the result of which I would propose to publish.

Mr. Whitehead: Will my right hon. Friend accept that even the announcement of this limited inquiry will be widely welcomed not only in the House but by Mr. and Mrs. Hanratty, senior, and many


others, who have spent years campaigning for this very tragic affair to be cleared up? We accept that the possibility of intolerable stress for some of the major witnesses militates against a public inquiry, but does my right hon. Friend agree that we must avoid the lack of credibility which in retrospect attaches to the Scott Henderson inquiry, for example, into the Timothy Evans case? Will this investigator have the power to call for documents and to subpoena witnesses, albeit to be heard in private, and will the Hanratty family be granted representation at the inquiry?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir, there cannot, at an inquiry of this kind, be power to subpoena witnesses or to have representation as such. I think that I am right in saying that neither consideration applied in the case of the Brabin inquiry, which was the ultimate inquiry into the Evans case.
I have been concerned in this matter to try to reassure public opinion and those concerned that justice has not only been done but been seen to be done. At the same time, I have been greatly concerned at not having the new difficulty of an appearance in the witness box of the undoubted victim of this crime. I have in mind, too, the difficulty of conducting informal trials of other people.
I think that this is the right way to proceed. Let us have the report. The person whom I shall ask to report may see people if he so wishes. Let us publish the result and see where we are then.

Mr. Bates: I thank my right hon. Friend for the consideration that he has given to this matter at a time when he has a great number of other matters to which he has had to give much of his time. May I assure my right hon. Friend that there will be an understanding of the reason why much of the inquiry could not take place in public? Is my right hon. Friend aware, however, that the Brabin inquiry was held in public, apart from just two days, I think? Might it not be possible for most of this inquiry to take place in public? Is he also aware that there is a great deal of public concern about this matter and that the question of confidence in this inquiry will turn very much on the powers given to the Queen's Counsel who is conducting

it? Will counsel have power to call for any relevant police documents and Home Office documents, and will private individuals be able to submit evidence to him?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, individuals concerned can submit evidence. Counsel will have power to see all documents which are relevant. I thank my hon. Friend for what he said earlier. He is probably right in saying that the Brabin inquiry was held to some extent in public, but it had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, to take evidence on oath, or to demand the disclosure of documents. But my intention, certainly, is that this inquiry, which I trust will be useful, will have all the documents available to it.

Heathrow (Security)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the new security arrangements at Heathrow Airport.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I would draw the hon. Member's attention to the Policing of Airports Bill, which I presented on 12th June and which I hope will shortly receive a Second Reading.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: What will be the future of the original Airports Police in relation to the Metropolitan Police?

Mr. Jenkins: The original Airports Police will come into the Metropolitan Police so far as London Airport is concerned.

Women Prisoners

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many women are now held in prison; and what changes he proposes in the custodial treatment of women offenders.

Dr. Summerskill: On 31st May 1974, there were 1,086 women and girls in custody in prison service establishments in England and Wales, of whom 302 were unsentenced. We intend to continue the policy of providing a flexible régime of treatment and training for women offenders which will, so far as possible, take account of their individual needs.

Mrs. Short: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that information. Does she not agree that of those women who are in prison the overwhelming majority really ought not to be there, and that women who are committed to prison because they are prostitutes, drug addicts, drunkards or shoplifters get very little help from the prison system? Will she do everything possible to see that they are either transferred to open prisons or receive care in the community? Can my hon. Friend say anything at this stage about the abolition of forced feeding of women in prison?

Dr. Summerskill: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already announced that it is his long-term aim to secure a significant reduction in the prison population and he has emphasised that the courts have a wide range of non-custodial penalties available to them. As regards the forced feeding of women in prison, the Home Secretary has already said that he is considering this matter.

Sir John Hall: The Minister said that over 300 women are in prison today when still awaiting sentence. I think that I heard her correctly. What is the average length of time, roughly, that they spend there before sentence is passed?

Dr. Summerskill: I should like to give the hon. Gentleman an accurate answer to that question—if he will table a separate Question, I shall answer it—but efforts are being made to increase the number of women bailed and to reduce the number of those held on custodial remand.

PRIME MINISTER (OFFICIAL VISITS)

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Prime Minister whether he has plans to visit Rhodesia; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Redmond: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to pay an official visit to Dublin.

Mr. Adley: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Christchurch, Dorset.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Ormskirk.

Mr. Bates: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make an official visit to Bebington.

Mr. Tim Renton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will pay an official visit to the new local authority district of Mid-Sussex.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: asked the Prime Minister when he next plans to visit Scotland.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I have at present no plans to visit Rhodesia, Dublin, Christchurch in Dorset, Ormskirk, Bebington, the new local authority district of mid-Sussex, or Scotland, Sir.

Mr. Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is raising a point of order. Mr. Heath.

Mr. Heath: It directly affects the future conduct of business. Is it not an abuse of the existing traditions of Prime Minister's Questions that the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Heath: As it directly affects the conduct of business, I should like your ruling, Mr. Speaker, whether it is not an abuse of the tradition of Prime Minister's Questions that Questions of the nature which the Prime Minister has just grouped together should be answered in this way, because this obviously deliberately limits the number of supplementaries which you can call about a particular place to which the Prime Minister has referred.

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the right hon. Gentleman is allowed, when other hon. Members are not, to raise points of order during Question Time—[Interruption.] May I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, on that point of order, that the right hon. Gentleman frequently changed his practice about grouping, and that it is widely recognised in the House that, for example, just before the last


recess, when I was asked, in a Question, to visit Derbyshire, more than half the time of questions on my Derbyshire non-visit related to Chile, on which I had answered Questions for 40 minutes two days earlier?

Mr. Skinner: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am quite willing to pursue this matter further at the end of Questions. Meanwhile, I rule that nothing has occurred with which the Chair should interfere. Mr. Evans.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On very many occasions you, with the approval of the House, have quite rightly said that you deprecated points of order during Question Time because they deprived Members of having their Questions answered. Even this afternoon, about 10 minutes ago, you rightly deferred hearing a point of order that was about to be raised by the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph). But having allowed the Leader of the Opposition a privilege that is not given to any other Member, and now having had this point of order, hon. Members have already been deprived of five minutes of Question Time.

Mr. Speaker: They have also been deprived of another two minutes by the hon. Gentleman. I have said that I am quite willing to pursue this matter later. I have to exercise my judgment on these matters. I did so. We shall now continue with the supplementary questions.

Mr. Evans: The intention of my Question was to get the House to consider the issue of Rhodesia. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend has no intention of making that unnecessary journey, but does he realise that as a party we have put positive proposals on the illegal régime in Rhodesia, that in the past 25 years two-thirds of humanity have been liberated, and that the only colonial territories left are in that part of southern Africa? Now that the Portuguese dictatorship has been overthrown, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau will soon reach independence. As the custodian of the party's manifesto, will my right hon. Friend ensure that we carry out the policies in that document?

The Prime Minister: I was trying to save the time of the House so that we

could make progress. I am sorry that time has been lost.
There is only one point on which I disagree with my hon. Friend. What he said about policy in relation to Rhodesia is not only the view of our party, and Her Majesty's Government; the previous Government, following the proposals put forward by the Pearce Commission, also took the view that we could not as a Government or a House, agree to any proposals for Rhodesia which did not carry the support of the African as well as the white population. We have all said that. There have been talks recently between the Smith régime and Bishop Muzorewa and the African National Council, and a delegation from the ANC is coming to visit me in the very near future. Whatever it may have been in the past, I do not regard the matter as now being an issue of division between the parties.

Mr. Redmond: As the Prime Minister apparently is not moving around very much, will he send someone else to Dublin, in view of the serious situation that could arise if, by any accident, this country left the Common Market, while the Irish Republic will, as we know, stay in? Would not that be an absolute death blow to the long-term chances of peace in the island of Ireland? Should we not have contingency plans to guard against that?

The Prime Minister: I think that Common Market membership is a separate question from that of the grave situation in Northern Ireland. Whilst I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, I had not thought of Common Market membership as necessarily a solution to the deep-lying problems of Northern Ireland. I do not feel that it is necessary for me to go there. We are in close touch with the Government of the Irish Republic, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland visited Dublin recently.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I am very sorry that my right hon. Friend finds that he is unable to make an official visit to Ormskirk. Will he take note of the unacceptably high level of unemployment in the area of Kirkby in my constituency? Will he also take a personal interest in the workers' sit-in at the New Are factory there and give whatever assistance he and


the Government can give to their attempts to create a workers' co-operative? Further, will my right hon. Friend note the desire of my constituents for the speedy implementation of the Labour Party's proposals for an extension of public ownership and the preservation of the right to work?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the way in which he has approached a question about which he and I have been concerned over many years. I have visited the Ormskirk constituency many times—more, I think, than my hon. Friend—and Kirkby, which was in my constituency until recently. I am very concerned about what has happened to the plant, which was saved from closure two years ago, but there are great problems in any Government's putting money into the factory in such a situation. The right hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Chataway) was very helpful to the factory, and consulted me at the end of last year about his anxieties. The collateral which the then Government thought would be available, in terms of premises, against the Government loan does not now seem to be available. There are heavy losses. We are concerned now to save the factory itself for employment much more suited to the purposes for which it was built. It is one of the best engineering premises in the North of England. We are now concerned with finding alternative employment there. We do not rule out, if necessary, the Government's taking over the premises and providing them for suitable management.

Mr. Adley: As the Prime Minister has just expressed his great concern about jobs, if he is unwilling to come to Christchurch, perhaps he will be willing to receive a deputation of my constituents who are working on Concorde at BAC, Hurn, near Christchurch, explain why his Government are still prevaricating about Concorde, and tell them that he has come out firmly in favour of the aircraft and that he will allow production to proceed as quickly as possible.

The Prime Minister: I know and understand the hon. Gentleman's concern about the future of the Concorde project, which is shared by hon. Members on both sides of the House—including my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry—who represent other areas

involved, such as Weybridge, Bristol and the engine-producing areas. The Government have been going into the matter very fully I do not think it would help if I said anything further this afternoon, but I take very seriously what the hon. Gentleman said.

Mr. Stonehouse: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the new idea of answering Questions together? It is bound to lead to questions and answers being very diffuse, and may well ensure that Questions from No. Q2 onwards are not dealt with.
To return to Question No. Q1, what comment has my right hon. Friend to make on the announcement of a general election in Rhodesia? Will he make it clear to all concerned that there is no question of this Government's taking any account of an election based on such an undemocratic electorate? Will he take note of the need for the long-standing political detainees, such as Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Sithole, to be released to enable them to engage in meaningful negotiations on behalf of the majority?

The Prime Minister: I did this grouping today hoping that we could make more rapid progress than we have done in recent weeks, but we lost seven minutes at the beginning because the Leader of the Opposition wanted to celebrate the end of the phoney war by raising a point of order.
With regard to my right hon. Friend's substantive question about Rhodesia, I entirely endorse what he said. The calling of a so-called general election by an illegal Government carries no weight at all in this House, because very few in the House purport to recognise that there is a legal Government in Rhodesia. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend's strictures on that illegal régime for the illegal detention of Mr. Nkomo and Mr. Sithole, as well as many others. Both have now been detained for a period of 10 years—in the case of Mr. Nkomo without trial.

Mr. Renton: I am grateful to the Prime Minister for answering my Question, which, as it stands at No. 19 on the Order Paper, I was not totally expecting.

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is all very interesting, but the hon. Gentleman must ask a Question.

Mr. Renton: If he had visited Mid-Sussex the Prime Minister would have found that many of my constituents were interested in the date of the next General Election. Will he advise us what progress he is making into his investigation of voting at a General Election on what might be called a shift basis?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said. It is obvious that I have pleased one hon. Member by grouping a number of Questions, all of which were put down on the same day—in which I am following the Leader of the Opposition—and enabling the hon. Members concerned to put their Questions. I did not realise that the hon. Gentleman was not expecting it, but I am happy to feel that he is glad to have had a chance to put a supplementary question on the matter.
With regard to the date of the next General Election, which is being pressed on the Government so avidly by the Leader of the Opposition, I have no immediate information to give the House. When I have, I shall see that the House is informed, of course.
With regard to what I think the hon. Gentleman called staggered voting, the 1945 precedent—[Interruption.]—Some hon. Members, including some of the interrupters, who will not be back next time, would of course like to have elections when many of their working-class voters are away. I do not think it likely that a recommendation would be made for a July election which would involve the 1945 rules. I do not think that it is likely, and I hope that it helps the hon. Gentleman for me to say so.

Mr. James Johnson: I revert to Salisbury. Is my right hon. Friend aware that according to information that some of us have there was a fair chance of Smith making some agreement with Bishop Muzorewa and his people in the ANC? Is my right hon. Friend saying today that if that were possible he would be against it, or would he lend his best efforts to that end?

The Prime Minister: I did not say that I would be against it. I think that the Government's attitude is that of their predecessors. If there were meaningful talks—and I think that there have been talks between Mr. Smith and his col

leagues on the one hand and Bishop Muzorewa and the ANC on the other—and if those talks produced a scheme that looked like commending itself to the African population as well as to the white population, that is something that we would all take very seriously. However, we would have to be satisfied, as our predecessors insisted that they would have to be satisfied, that such a scheme was acceptable to the African population.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Will the right hon. Gentleman come to Scotland, where on 28th February he would have found that unemployment had fallen sharply, that job vacancies were at an all-time high, that industry was in a good state and emigration was at an all-time low? If he went to Scotland today he would see the total uncertainty which industry is facing because of the wild nationalisation plans put forward by the Secretary of State for Industry.

The Prime Minister: I am not sure whether I heard the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Taylor). Did he say something about February? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes.") In February, Scotland was on a three-day week like the rest of the country. The numbers signing on unemployed or temporarily stopped at that time were the highest since the war. I do not know whether Scotland had the same experience as the rest of Britain—I suspect that it did—but what the Government did was to end the three-day week in two days.
The hon. Gentleman referred to unemployment figures. He will have seen the statement which was made yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland comparing the present level of unemployment in Scotland with a figure miles beyond 100,000, which was never reached from 1964 to 1970, which the hon. Gentleman was always concerned to defend when he was a Scottish Minister.

Mr. Dykes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask for your guidance because the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who, incidentally, appears to be treating Question Time more and more like a bad version of the Clitheroe Kid, during Questions on visits to various places, grouped all the visit Questions


together without exception, save the Question which I tabled—No. Q6—about visiting all the capital cities of the European Economic Community. Do you think, Mr. Speaker, that that was right and justified, or was it done because my Question was more difficult than some of the others.

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If I may say so, the hon. Gentleman's point is one that I was considering, and I should like to think about what he said. We are all learning—some of us—on these matters. The reason that I did not include the hon. Gentleman's Question—I admit that perhaps it was wrong not to do so—was that the answer to all the other Questions was that I was not proposing to visit the places concerned. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I am going to Brussels next week. I was in Germany yesterday. I should very much like to consider the point that the hon. Member made.

QUESTIONS TO THE PRIME MINISTER

Mr. Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If a number of hon. Members table Questions on a particular speech, which is now accepted as customary, the Prime Minister of the day can be pressed on that matter. It is obvious that this afternoon, when a large number of Questions were answered about visits to different places on which back bench and Front Bench hon. Members may have wished to press the right hon. Gentleman, there was no possible opportunity of pressing him. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will abandon this procedure until the Procedure Committee has ruled upon it.

Mr. Speaker: In my experience one of the problems is that most Prime Ministers, if they are asked a substantive Question, usually transfer it to the Minister responsible. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was no more guilty than any other Prime Minister. It has happened all the time. That is one of the problems.

The Prime Minister: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I welcome the suggestion that the matter should be further considered by the Select Com

mittee. However, the House will be aware that the Select Committee on Procedure recently considered this matter and reached the conclusion—I speak from memory, and hon. Members can correct me—that the present situation regarding visit Questions was unsatisfactory. The Committee did not have anything to recommend to the House on the matter. If, on the second bite at this cherry, it can find a satisfactory answer—I recognise that this afternoon's experiment has not been 100 per cent. successful, partly because we wasted seven minutes at the beginning on the point of order raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—that will be a matter for the House to consider.
I was very much concerned that before the Whitsun Recess a large number of Questions placed high up on the Order Paper were not reached because on a Question relating to Derbyshire we discussed Chile for nearly 10 minutes. It was not satisfactory that important Questions only a little lower down on the Order Paper were not reached. We have a problem that all hon. Members must face.

Mr. George Cunningham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It seems to be suggested that the Procedure Committee be given the task of improving things. Would it not be a good idea if in this Parliament we established a Procedure Committee? We have not yet done so.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Earlier I paid tribute to you, and I think that the House was pleased with the way in which you previously tried to safeguard hon. Members' time on Questions to the Prime Minister. Would it not be possible to have such a safeguard by having an agreed procedure whereby, for example, the first four or five Questions, which may be of a similar character, are lumped together, at the discretion of the Prime Minister in consultation with the Chair? The other Questions could take their normal course. The reasonable figure for such a grouping could be discussed through the usual channels, and the Prime Minister of the day would be able to say, "With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall answer the first three Questions together". Of course, it might


be the first three, four or five Questions. That would solve the problem.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If I am going to get further advice on this matter, I think it would be more convenient for the House if it were conveyed to me in some other way. We have two very important debates today, and also business questions.

Mr. Nigel Lawson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. While one admires the Prime Minister's ingenuity in avoiding Questions that he is frightened to answer, will he tell us how he proposes to group Questions in future—otherwise hon. Members will have no idea how to put down Questions to him?

The Prime Minister: That question seems to have been addressed to me, rather than to you, Mr. Speaker. I shall consider what has been said today, and also your own proposal. I find some merit in what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis). Since there is at present no Select Committee on Procedure, I think that one will have to be appointed specially. There may be a case for discussions through the usual channels to see whether we can agree, not only with the official Opposition but with other parties and hon. Members, on a means acceptable to the House which will help us to move rapidly to other Questions. It may be that the answer lies in grouping only three or four Questions together, whichever happened to be first on the Order Paper. I suggest that there should first be talks through the usual channels, in order to make progress on this matter.

Mr. William Hamilton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The back bencher in this House has a right to suspect every Prime Minister all the time, because all Prime Ministers have abused Question Time at one time or another. Is it not the case that in the absence of a Select Committee on Procedure the responsibility for protecting the back bencher from this abuse rests with you? In this case, would it not have been within your power to ignore the grouping and to call the other Questions? You are not bound to call supplementary questions from hon. Members who have put down Questions about

visits to various parts of the world. It is entirely up to you to protect the back bencher from the abuses of every Prime Minister who has sat on the Front Bench.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his advice.

Mr. Kilfedder: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Question No. Q2 was obviously vitally important, and the device used by the Prime Minister deprived me of the opportunity of putting to him the position in Northern Ireland, which has been blasted by bombs during the past few days, and of finding out what pressures he intends to bring on the Prime Minister of the Republic to end the smuggling of bombs and explosives from the Republic to Northern Ireland. What protection do you give to a back bencher who represents part of the Province which is suffering in this way?

Mr. Speaker: I shall certainly consider all these points.

CYPRUS (SHOOTING INCIDENT)

Mr. Maurice Macmillan (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action he has taken over the death by shooting of Mr. Michael Howe in Cyprus, and if he will make a statement.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Miss Joan Lester): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of this Question.
The British High Commissioner at Nicosia called on the President of the Republic of Cyprus on the morning following this most distressing incident and expressed our grave concern. President Makarios expressed his deep personal sorrow and assured him that he would institute a full inquiry and would take immediate steps to avoid any recurrence.
I would like to take this opportunity of expressing our very deep sympathy with Mr. Howe's family and our best wishes for the full recovery of those who were injured in the incident.

Mr. Macmillan: I thank the hon. Lady for her statement. I am sure that the whole House shares her expression of sympathy to Mr. Howe's family and of


good wishes for those injured. I thank her for getting the British High Commissioner so rapidly into consultation with the President. I am sure that the House will be reassured to know that President Makarios himself is taking a personal interest and, I understand, may well make a personal statement.
I hope that the Foreign Office will continue to keep in consultation with the Government of Cyprus, particularly in view of the large number of tourists who visit Cyprus, so that we can reassure our constituents that this type of incident is not likely to recur. We understand the problems in Cyprus, but I am sure the hon. Lady will agree that we need reassurance about police methods and police discipline within the island.

Miss Lestor: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that as soon as we have further information I will see that he and the House are fully informed. We are keeping the question of the general security situation in Cyprus under review. At this stage, we see no reason to discourage intending visitors from going to Cyprus but they should be aware of the security situation and they should be careful. I understand that members of Her Majesty's Armed Forces and families stationed in Cyprus have also been advised at the moment to exercise due caution in the light of the security situation.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House to tell us the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 24TH JUNE—Second Reading of the Railways Bill and of the Policing of Airports Bill.
Proceedings on the Statute Law Repeals Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation measure.
Motion relating to the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 (Amendment) Order.
TUESDAY 25TH JUNE—Remaining stages of the Housing Bill.
Motion on the Calf Subsidies (United Kingdom) (Variation) Scheme.
WEDNESDAY 26TH JUNE—Supply (9th allotted day): Until seven o'clock, debate on an Opposition motion on Agriculture.
Remaining stages of the Housing (Scotland) Bill.
At seven o'clock, the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
THURSDAY 27TH JUNE—Supply (10th allotted day): Debate on an Opposition motion on Rates.
Motions on New Palace Yard landscaping and car parking, and on parliamentary accommodation.
FRIDAY 28TH JUNE—Consideration of Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 1ST JULY—Second Reading of the Social Security (Amendment) Bill.
Debate on an Opposition motion on pension policy.

Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in the following week, we shall be in the month of July, and the Government seem to be getting somewhat behind hand with business? The House will require to have debates on a number of important matters before it rises—for example, the Lane Report on abortion, the Nugent Report on defence land, the Hardman report on the dispersal of the Civil Service, the O'Brien Report on the export of animals, the Younger Report on young adult offenders, the Government's Red Paper on devolution, and the Government's decisions on the nuclear reactors and Concorde. No doubt the House will want to have a two-day debate on economic affairs before we rise, and it may well be that by that time we shall want a debate on foreign affairs. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will take notice of these requirements before we rise for the Summer Recess.

Mr. Short: I take note of what the right hon. Gentleman said. I have not undertaken to have debates on all those subjects, but I think that we can debate most of them, certainly enough to satisfy him.

Sir G. de Freitas: Since last week, the Committee on European Secondary Legislation &c has found another four


proposals sufficiently important to require debate in the House. When will the Government provide time, as they are under an obligation to do?

Mr. Short: I understand that we have had two reports from the Committee. I very much hope that in the week after next we shall be able to find time for the three most important of those orders.

Mr. Grimond: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is highly unsatisfactory that we still have not had a full-scale debate on the Kilbrandon Report or on the new paper published by the Government? Will he ensure that at least before the election this time the House is given the opportunity to express its opinion and is given the views of a senior Minister on behalf of the Government? After all, the whole of the rest of the country is supposed to be being consulted now.

Mr. Short: When the Government arrive at a conclusion I hope that it will be debated. The paper we published recently was purely a consultative document which did little more than summarise the Kilbrandon Report.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Will my right hon. Friend consider a debate on the important Nugent Report about the release of defence lands, and will he consider giving time for that to be discussed along with the Sandford Report, which has a close relationship and which deals with land in the national parks?

Mr. Short: As always, my hon. Friend has made a useful and intelligent suggestion which I shall certainly bear in mind.

Mr. Marten: On the point raised by the right hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas), may we have a reassurance that in view of the delay in debating some of the regulations referred to us by the Committee on European Secondary Legislation, the Government will in the meantime place a stop order on any decisions which might be made on those matters which have to be referred to the House? Can we therefore linger on into August until we complete the matters referred to us by the Committee dealing with secondary legislation?

Mr. Short: I understand that the first point on which the Council of Ministers is likely to make a decision is an order

on economic guidelines, and I promised last week that the House would have an opportunity to debate this before it went to the Council of Ministers. I shall adhere to that. I hope that the debate will take place in the week after next.

Mr. Ford: Has my right hon. Friend anything to add to the statement he made on Monday when he said that the Services Committee would be meeting urgently to consider matters of security?

Mr. Short: I am told that the Services Committee has met twice to discuss security, once on Tuesday and once today, and I understand that it has laid before the House today a preliminary report on security. I shall take any action that it may be necessary for me to take to see that the report is implemented, in consultation with you, of course, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman promised last week to consider the point I raised about European Questions. I pointed out that under the new procedure there will be fewer opportunities to direct Questions about Europe if they are penned into the last 20 minutes of Foreign Office Questions. Since we are having this experiment on Wednesday, has the right hon. Gentleman considered this issue?

Mr. Short: No, but when we consider the point which the hon. Member has raised, I shall bear in mind what he said. If he would like to come to see me about it, I shall be glad to discuss it with him.

Mr. Jay: On the question of the Committee on European Secondary Legislation, will the right hon. Gentleman assure the honourable House that we shall have time to debate all its reports before the recess, otherwise the procedure will lose its meaning?

Mr. Short: I would certainly hope so, unless the Committee decided to swamp us with orders. So far, however, it has sent five orders altogether, and I hope that we can find time to debate them all before the Summer Recess. Three of them are of particular importance, and I hope that we shall be able to find time for them in the week after next week.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: May I press the Leader of the House on the question of security? He says that a document


has been laid on the Table. In view of the printing difficulties it may take some time for the rest of the House to see that document. Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to say something definite about it now?

Mr. Short: The Chairman of the Services Committee showed it to me after he had laid it before the House. I agree that it may be next week before hon. Members see it, but I believe that its more important aspects of advice to you, Mr. Speaker, are that all Members should be required to carry passes and that civil servants should be required to carry photographic passes. They do not have them at the moment because they have ordinary Civil Service passes.
The first of these proposals raises the question of privilege and I shall certainly look at that, but I am sure that hon. Members would be prepared to forgo, or at least suspend part of their privilege in the present rather difficult situation.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Ashton: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Select Committee on Members' Interests has decided to sit only once a week, and if that is so, will he explain how he can stick to his original promise that the Committee will report back before the end of July?

Mr. Short: The Committee has decided that it will be impossible for it to report to the House before the end of July, but it has reaffirmed the instruction from the House that it will report at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Hastings: May we expect a statement from the Government on the forthcoming United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, which I understand has the gravest implications on the economic future of this country?

Mr. Short: I shall convey that request to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Mr. Faulds: The right hon. Gentleman—or I suppose I should say my right hon. Friend—will be aware of the situation that arose this week concerning the recall of

the WEU delegation to Westminster. Does my right hon. Friend realise that because we broke our pairs last night, the Tories have broken theirs tonight, with the result that for most of yesterday and up to today no British Member has been present at that delegation? Is not this unsatisfactory and will my right hon. Friend consider it on future occasions?

Mr. Short: This is a matter between the two parties to be discussed through the usual channels, but I am told that there were no broken pairs.

Mr. Lane: What has happened to the Bill on the safety of sports grounds of which the Leader of the House was reminded several weeks ago?

Mr. Short: The Bill is encountering some difficulty, but it will be coming along eventually.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: My right hon. Friend spoke a few moments ago about the advisability of Members of Parliament having passes. Is it not much more important that Members' wives, secretaries—and, more important, any person who comes in with a parcel or comes in to do a job—should have passes and identity cards? The police know most of the Members of Parliament, but they do not know all the workmen around here.

Mr. Short: All secretaries are required to have photographic passes. The report also suggests that it would be a good idea if Members' wives and families had passes. Workmen are, of course, required to have passes, and I am assured that this system is now being tightened up. It had rather fallen into disuse for casual workers.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Because of the special circumstances of today I must move on with business.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR MONDAY 8TH JULY

Members successful in the Ballot were:

Mr. Nigel Lawson.
Mr. Toby Jessel.
Mr. Frank Allaun.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[8th ALLOTTED DAY],—considered.

Orders of the Day — LABOUR'S PLANS FOR INDUSTRY

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Leader of the Opposition to move his motion I have to inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends.

4.8 p.m.

Mr. Edward Heath: I beg to move,
That this House regrets the Government's damaging industrial policies based on a massive extension of nationalisation and control of individual companies.
Although this debate is short, it is devoted to the coverage of the whole of the Government's industry policy. After three and a half months the impact of the Government's policies is already seen very clearly on industry—as a result of the Government's action in four separate spheres, with which I shall deal. First, there is the burden deliberately placed on industry by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. The right hon. Gentleman took £1,100 million out of industry's cash flow this year—£420 million in corporation tax, £340 million in employers' contribution, and the remainder in the increase in the nationalised industries' prices. The impact of this shortage of cash flow is already being seen in the conditions of many firms in this country, in the reduction in the investment forecasts and in the cancellation of plans which would have led to new jobs. I believe that the reduction of the cash flow is a deliberate policy designed to force many firms into a situation in which they will have to ask for Government assistance, and as a result of their being in this position the Secretary of State for Industry will then be able to gain control over them, the control which he wants and which is in accordance with his published plans.
There is then the impact of the Budget on the consumer by deliberately forcing

up prices. This has triggered the threshold earlier than was necessary and the very triggering of the threshold—on three occasions with the last rise in the BPI, and I expect there to be a further two when the announcement is made tomorrow—is bound to have its impact first on prices and then on the cash flow of many firms. As a result, we are also seeing a rash of industrial disputes over thresholds because of the way in which this matter has been handled by this Government. About 2 million workers negotiated thresholds and the remainder are now disputing the whole question.
There should also be added to this the damage which this approach did to those on middle sized incomes, who come largely from middle management and now find that their incentives are greatly diminished. The obvious result, which could easily have been forecast, is that these people look to other countries to see whether there are better possibilities for them. This is even extending, as I know well, to the artistic world, to those who have come to make their homes and lives in London as the greatest musical capital of the world and now have the greatest doubts whether they should remain here.
The second factor which has made its impact is the Government's attitude towards the EEC and the so-called renegotiation of the treaty and the talk of taking Britain out of the Community. This has completely undermined the confidence of firms which had already made plans—some of them implemented, others well on the way to implementation—to operate freely within the Community. They now find themselves in a state of doubt about the future. The result is postponed investment and again the loss of jobs which could have been created by it.
In addition, we must include the loss of investment from overseas by those who were prepared to invest here because they wanted to be inside the Community. They are now unsure of the future in Britain, so this investment is being lost, together with the jobs which would have gone with it, many of which would have been in Scotland, Wales and the development areas.
All of this is quite unnecessary if the Foreign Secretary is now genuine in


saying that he does not propose to ask for any changes in the Treaty of Accession or the Treaty of Rome. If that is so, none of this doubt need have been inspired. Changes inside the Community will constantly be made, they have been made already while we have been a member, and they will go on being made to suit the conditions of the member countries, no matter which country is involved.
In fact, by talking first of renegotiation and then saying that they did not propose to make any change in the treaties, the Government have been playing out a charade—but a damaging and very dangerous charade from the point of view of investment in industry in this country, either indigenous investment or investment from overseas. They have done it in order to try to heal the breaches in their own ranks. It is time that the Prime Minister and his colleagues faced their Left Wing, showed them what the facts of life really are about Britain's place in the world and looked after our national interests as they should have done when they became the Government.
The third matter which has made its impact on industry is the Government's Green Paper on the so-called "worker participation". This is a misnomer if ever there was one. These are not proposals for participation—

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): It is not a Green Paper.

Mr. Heath: I am referring to the general paper which has been issued by the right hon. Gentleman's party—

The Prime Minister: That is a party document.

Mr. Heath: Yes. It is called a Green Paper, as I understand it. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to disown it, of course he may do so.

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman referred to a Government Green Paper. There has been no such Green Paper issued by the Government. In his period of office, Conservative Central Office published an awful lot of tripe, but he never took responsibility for it.

Mr. Heath: It is called a Green Paper—" A report to the Labour Party Indus

trial Policy Sub-Committee." If the right hon. Gentleman wants to refer to it as "tripe" he is free to do so.
But these are not proposals for worker participation, for participation by workers elected by all those working in the firm. These are proposals which threaten a system of outside control of firms and companies by professional union officials, men who may well know nothing about a particular firm and will have to know nothing about it.
In that Labour Party document—I am agreeable to the Prime Minister's disowning the lot if he wants, because that might start to restore confidence in British industry—the proposals would mean the so-called "election" but, in fact, "appointment" to 50 per cent. board membership, with alternating chairmen, of union leaders. We know that a union leader can be elected for life on a ballot of less than 10 per cent. of his total membership and that he himself might get only 7 per cent.
This is what is undermining confidence in British industry, that the right hon. Gentleman's Government will take over proposals of this kind and expect British industry to be run in this way. This proposal has thoroughly undermined confidence. I repeat that it is not a proposal for worker participation. Many of us have long argued for that, and, in respect of the Community, I put it forward at the Summit Conference in Paris in 1972, specifically by arrangement with the then German Chancellor, Herr Brandt.
Many of the best firms in this country are carrying through participation of this kind themselves at the moment, and they want it extended by a code, by European legislation or whatever it may be—but not this sort of proposal, in which 50 per cent. of a board's members would be nominated solely by union officials and drawn from union officials or those outside the company.

Mr. Eric Moonman: The right hon. Gentleman has made much of the fact that the practices of Europe are worth taking into account. What is the difference between these proposals by the Labour Party and those which have already been acquired by the EEC?

Mr. Heath: There is a major difference—this is true also of the German system—which is that in Europe they are


"workers" and not solely "union members", and, moreover, that they consist of those who are in the firm and who, therefore, participate in the life of the firm and are not imposed from the outside. These are the two basic differences in a subject which is of great importance.
Fourth, the matter which has made the greatest impact of all is the plans for widespread nationalisation of nine major industries and State control initially of the first 100 firms. I say "initially" because that is the word that the Secretary of State for Industry has openly used. These plans cover at least half of British manufacturing industry. The Prime Minister, of course, is coy about naming the 100 firms. I am not in the least surprised, but others will make sure that those 100 firms are known in every constituency in the country; in every branch they have, no matter where they are, the workers will be told exactly what lies in store for them if this Government have a chance to implement these proposals—the nationalisation, complete and outright, of shipbuilding, ship repairing, marine engineering, the ports, the aircraft industry, machine tools, pharmaceuticals, road haulage and North Sea oil and gas.
It may well be that on pharmaceuticals and machine tools there is a limitation on the profitable parts of the industry available for nationalisation. It is difficult to understand the logic of that on any reasoning, but when it comes to the point I suspect that the Secretary of State for Industry would like to take the whole lot.
On North Sea oil and gas, it may be that the Government will adapt our plans for carried interest or an additional revenue tax, but, again, they have not made their position clear. They have shown typical dithering over the whole question due to their internal arguments. We had already taken our decisions about taxation so far as the losses are concerned and announced them to Parliament. The Chancellor did that, too, and confirmed again that they would be taken in the Finance Bill.
This indecision is damaging to the oil industry, but what is more important is that it is raising doubts in the minds of every overseas investor in the oil industry in the North Sea whether he should go on being prepared to put sums of money into prospecting. This is the damaging

effect of the Government's attitude and of the fact that they have not made their position clear over North Sea oil.
We must also add to these proposals the very real threat emphasised by the Chancellor a year ago, that, given a chance—I have no doubt about that—they would be working on plans to nationalise the banks, insurance companies, building societies and other financial institutions. Indeed, I will freely grant it to the Secretary of State for Industry and his friends in the Cabinet—I think that they would agree—that if they are able to do what they plan in the way of widespread nationalisation over the field that I have described, plus the National Enterprise Board and the controls that he wants, they can argue logically that there is no justification for having any private financial institutions of any kind.
Why should they have them if they have control of so much of industry and have nationalised such a wide spread of it? So it is logical for the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends to press for the nationalisation of the financial institutions as well, because, in their logic, no place would remain for them.
What is more, one of the reasons why I am convinced that the Secretary of State for Social Services wants to postpone a large part of the 1973 Act is to ensure that the pension funds are under her control and not under control of any other kind. That is once again the propose of this Government's policy, to secure the control of contributions to pensions funds in the pensions arrangements. We would reach a position where all savings banks, building societies and insurance companies were under direct Government control. It means the removal of choice for the individual. It is absolutely basic. It is the removal of choice.
It would mean that London would cease to be a major financial centre. Great damage will be done to our invisible exports, which in these last few years have been playing a major part in our balance of payments.
These four policies—the damaging Budget, the uncertainty over membership of the EEC, the proposals put forward for trade union control of 50 per cent. on boards of management, and the massive extension of nationalisation, of State control—have undermined the confidence of


British industry and brought it to an all-time low. But they have also undermined the confidence of people outside Britain who were prepared to invest in this country.
If one adds to those four points what is now clearly a very dangerous situation, the approaching breakdown of a pay and incomes policy of any kind, one can understand the collapse of confidence in industry and finance, the cancellation of many investment plans, and the collapse of the capital market and of share prices.
There are many hon. Gentlemen opposite who are only too glad to welcome any collapse of the stock market. For the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must finance his deficit, this will now pose major problems, and for hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite with very close trade union connections, for they will look to their pension funds and see what is happening to them as a result of the undermining of confidence in British industry.

Mr. T. W. Urwin: The right hon. Gentleman in an obviously planned speech has chosen to restrict his comments to four areas—I meant to say "well planned"—which attempt to denigrate the present minority Government. Would he be prepared to give a fifth dimension to his speech and tell us how serious and deleterious were the effects of £1,200 million in public expenditure effected by his Chancellor of the Exchequer last December?

Mr. Heath: I am always prepared to argue that point. As Prime Minister I discussed very often with the trade unions and the CBI the financial measures required to get expansion going in the economy. That expansion was achieved. It was more than 5 per cent. It was welcomed by the trade unions as well as by the employers.
These plans—whatever the Government finally wish to admit—will be bitterly fought both politically and by industry. They will be bitterly fought by all those who believe in a free society, and this at a time when we face grave perils and when a divisive policy of this kind ought not to be put forward by any Government.
These plans are put forward as a solution to the problems of British industry. The problems are well known. Practically all members are fully acquainted with them. Many hon. Members have handled them over the past years. Some are historic, arising from the fact that we were the first industrialised nation. Another point is that we were not destroyed by the war to any great extent. We did not, therefore, have the advantage of modern post-war replacements as did some of our competitors. We received a loan of $2,000 million. That was thrown away and not used by the 1945 Government for the reconstruction for which it was intended. We know there are trade union attitudes and conditions governed to some extent still by the depressed years of the 1930s. We know there is a lack of mobility of labour in this country compared with other industrial nations. We also know that we have not forged ahead until very recently with sufficient training for middle or top management. There is a lack of cash flow, which has been made much worse by the recent Budget. There is an inability now to plan ahead because of changes of Government policy.
The right hon. Gentleman opposite is critical about the speed of industrial development during the last four years. If he and his colleagues had adhered in Opposition to the European policy they had while in Government British industry would have had complete confidence and could have invested to go into the EEC. That is a heavy responsibility which he will always carry.
I know of the right hon. Gentleman's comments on my remarks concerning the unpleasant face of capitalism. I deliberately pointed that out. The right hon. Gentleman said we took no action about it. We took immediate action. We set up an inquiry into the complaints. I do not see why hon. Gentlemen have reason to complain about a DTI inquiry into a matter of this kind.
We brought forward the Companies Act to deal specifically with the defects revealed. That is the correct way to deal with defects in a free-enterprise society. I wish right hon. Gentlemen were willing to do that with the trade union movement when defects are seen.
Let us look frankly at our society. Where we see defects, let us be prepared to take action about them.
The Government's proposals do not provide any solutions to the problems which in some cases have long been evident in British industry. They are either damaging or else irrelevant, or in some cases both. What justification is put forward for this wide extension of State control? The Prime Minister is clear about it.

The Prime Minister: It is in the manifesto.

Mr. Heath: The Prime Minister says that it is in the manifesto, but he has made no attempt to produce any justifification for it or intellectual argument about it.

The Prime Minister: There is a mandate.

Mr. Heath: There is no mandate for nationalisation by this Government. There were 18 million people who voted for parties which were against nationalisation, compared with 11 million who voted for the right hon. Gentleman's own party.
We then come to the somewhat shoddy arguments now used. They seem to be coming forward for the first time, particularly from the Secretary of State for Industry. He says that industry pays £4 million a day in taxes and receives £2 million a day in aids of one kind or another, mainly regional programmes. Which party has pressed incessantly in the House of Commons for regional aid programmes? The last Government carried out more than any of their predecessors, although sometimes criticised by my hon. Friends on the back benches.
The Secretary of State for Industry then claims that that gives him the right to have this massive extension of nationalisation and State control. But what argument is there in this? What right does it give him?
The Secretary of State's figures are wrong. At Question Time the Prime Minister made a strange statement in which he said he thought more was paid to industry than industry paid in taxes. He knows more about football than politics. He seems to know more about football than statistics.
Industry pays £10 million a day in taxes and receives £2 million per day in aid and grants of various kinds. For every £1 it receives it pays £5 in taxes.
What is the position of the nationalised industries? The write-offs in the nationalised industries now amount to more than £5,000 million, without including what Governments and public money have contributed towards their investment programmes.
That is not a real argument. It is a diversion put forward by the Secretary of State for Industry. He is producing these figures only to confuse the real issue. The real issue is: in what way will the British economy be run? That is the real issue which faces the House and the country.
There are two ways of running the economy, which is part nationalised and in part free-enterprise. The first is the way in which the British nation believes: that the Government take overall responsibility for strategy through the Budget and through monetary policy. The Government use planning powers to protect the environment and financial inducements to encourage investment and, for social reasons, for regional development. The second way is the way of State control and State planning throughout.
The Prime Minister says that every European country has the sort of arrangement that he is proposing, and he may have in mind the Italian IRI. I say to him, and I am prepared to give the Government credit, that the Italian system has not coped with the problem of development in Southern Italy or done anything of any consequence to restore the balance between Southern Italy and the northern industrial region, whereas we, although we have not solved the problem, have had considerable success through our regional policies. Between 1960 and 1965, 192,000 new jobs were created, and, taking the more recent example of our Industry Act 1972, by October 1973 60,000 new jobs had been provided.
That has not solved the problem entirely, but we ought not to discount what has been done under the system used by all post-war Governments which leaves the choice to industry and to individuals and which is carried through by consent. It is because we have had success that the Italian Government have been studying our methods and have supported us in Brussels in our proposals for the Regional Development Fund.

Mr. Joseph Ashton: The right hon. Gentleman neglects to mention Sweden, Israel and Canada, the countries in which a National Enterprise Board has been successful in industries such as tobacco, banking and coal. Why is the right hon. Gentleman being selective and referring only to Italy?

Mr. Heath: I could not mention all the places which the Prime Minister this afternoon was asked to visit. The hon. Gentleman should read what his right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General said:
My concern with the National Enterprise Board suggestion is simply that it is a bad idea. It derives from a vision of a monopolistic society ruled by technocrats",
and that is what the Secretary of State for Industry wants.
The system that we have avoids strict controls on firms and individuals. It avoids the creation of more State monopolies and the huge apparatus of State domination. It protects individual freedom and choice, and the European countries use a similar system.
I do not believe that the Secretary of State for Industry understands how a mixed economy works in a democracy. I do not think that he is interested in understanding it. What he understands is an economy based on State planning and State decision-making. That is what interests the right hon. Gentleman and leads to the production of his plans. Down that path lies the growth of collective coercion and a decrease of personal liberty, and in all this the Secretary of State is fully supported by the Prime Minister.
What right hon. Gentlemen opposite never discuss—though I hope they will do so today—are the problems of the nationalised industries. They are, however, prepared to denigrate free enterprise. Let us discuss the problems of the nationalised industries.
All those who have been concerned with the nationalised industries—and that means the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues as much as it does us—know that the problems are basically infinitely greater than those in free enterprise. Nationalised industries are massive units—and many of the proposed units will be massive—remote and, to a large extent in the literal use of the word, unmanageable.
The quality of management for units of such a scale is almost entirely unobtainable from either inside the industry or outside, and those who have had experience of trying to make appointments to boards or of chairmen of these massive units know what the difficulties are.
Nobody has found a way of making these massive and remote units properly responsible to Parliament, to Ministers or to anyone else. The industries themselves have not found a satisfactory way of delegation within themselves, and this is evident outside the Metropolis. They are usually unwilling to adapt their investment programmes to the trade cycle in order to help the national situation. They always press for subsidies of one kind and another because, they say, they are not commercially justified in making such a commitment. They are reluctant to work closely with British industry to encourage British industry because, they say, they much prefer to go elsewhere in the world where they may be able to get what they want off the peg. Those are the facts about nationalised industries.

Mr. Stanley Newens: What about the multinationals?

Mr. Heath: During my time as Prime Minister and when I was at the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour I never experienced a multinational which refused to co-operate with the Government. What is more, many of the multinationals have stood this country in good stead in times of war.
The demand by the nationalised industries for investment capital already hamstrings the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his financial policy and financial management, because he knows that with such massive units it is difficult to change anything with any rapidity. Why hamstring the Chancellor of the Exchequer still further and have massive demands which further nationalised industries will make on the Exchequer, apart from the cost of buying them—which presumably will be the case—and the inflationary effect of that?
The nationalised industries themselves, being such massive units, find the utmost difficulty in having an adequate system of financial control within their own organisation. They are cumbersome and slow-moving in their decision-taking, and


the whole process is compounded by the fact that they have to act in concert with the Treasury.
Those are the facts of life. Those working on the boards of management of nationalised industries are doing their best to cope with the problems but, many of these problems, by their nature, have still not been dealt with, and nobody can see how they will be, and that must be a major argument against the extension which the Secretary of State wants to bring about.
Who can argue that industrial relations in many of the large nationalised industries are satisfactory? One reason why they are not is the massive size of the units and the remoteness—

Mr. Ashton: And Government interference.

Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman blames Government interference; yet this House is constantly being pressed for further Government and parliamentary control over nationalised industries. If the hon. Gentleman does not want Government interference, he should tell his right hon. Friend to give it up and not nationalise industries.
The other fact is that a nationalised industry has no negotiating position in any of these problems, because the other side knows that it can say "Away with you. We will go to the Government of the day", and it goes to the Minister, be it the Secretary of State for Employment or the Treasury Minister or, as it used to be, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and now either Trade or Industry. Those who run these massive and remote units know that in any event those with whom they are negotiating will always sweep them to one side and demand to go to the Minister or the Government, and yet this House is constantly pressed for that situation to be developed.
Let us consider the consumer side of the matter. It may have been idealistic at one time, but does anybody now believe that consumers feel that the nationalised industries belong to them? Do the tormented commuters feel that the railways on which they are being disorganised belong to them? Does the housewife who finds the power switched off believe that the power stations belong

to her? Does anybody believe that the consumer councils represent what the consumer wants? What connection is there between consumer councils for nationalised industries and the ordinary citizen? These, too, are remote, and these are the problems of the nationalised industries about which we never hear from Government Members.
Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have sufficient experience, knowledge and intelligence to know that those are the real problems. Why, then, are they proposing to go ahead with proposals such as these? It can only be because, above all, they are greedy for power for the sake of power over industry. That is the basic demand of the Secretary of State.
The Government have at the moment launched this attack against British industry and it has shattered confidence and destroyed prospects for future jobs through affecting investment. It has now inflicted a complete planning blight across the whole face of industrial Britain.
In the past 20 years we have seen this all too often. The steel industry was a massive example in which, because of the constant threat of nationalisation, it did not go for the investment which it ought to have gone for, and the whole country has been suffering from that ever since—

The Prime Minister: Why did the right hon. Gentleman not denationalise any of the industries he has been speaking about, with the exception of the Carlisle State pubs?

Mr. Heath: There were other industries which we denationalised—but we did not denationalise in other cases for the simple reason that to do so again brings conflict in industry, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State is doing with free enterprise industry today. He has launched war against free enterprise industry
The industrial policy of the Labour Party has been the curse of Britain for 25 years. Let the House show in the vote tonight that the country wants no more of it.

4.31 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): I beg to move, to leave out from 'House' to


the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'recalling that subsidies paid to private companies by the previous Government, coupled with State intervention, did not correct the long term problems of British industry, failed to sustain investment, and ended in a collapse of confidence, believes that the time has come to re-examine the working of the mixed economy and to seek ways to improve production and exports, raise investment and provide more jobs in Scotland, Wales and the English regions; and supports the Statement by the Prime Minister on 12th March in the Debate on the Address on the Government's intention in respect of the forthcoming Industry Bill and the National Enterprise Board'.
This is the first time that the House has had an opportunity of discussing the industrial situation and the Government's industrial strategy in this Parliament. It is also the first time that there has been an opportunity to discuss the proposed Industry Bill, and the National Enterprise Board and the planning agreements system.
However, before passing to these subjects, which are central to our debate, perhaps I should say to the Leader of the Opposition that it was significant to me, listening to his speech, that, bearing in mind that he occupied the high office of Prime Minister for almost four years, he found no time to describe the contribution which he made to any of the problems now confronting the House.
The right hon. Gentleman made no reference whatever—one wonders how long his memory may be—to the inheritance of the three-day week or to the fact that when we came to power we found his policies of confrontation and war upon workers in industry which had led to the most tragic collapse of confidence which we have had in British industry since the war. If the right hon. Gentleman appeared, as many thought, to be out of touch with reality when he was Prime Minister, he has certainly proved today that he is still unready to face the reality of the consequences of his own policy—

Mr. Heath: There was no confrontation with our Government. If the right hon. Gentleman consults the leaders of the trade union movement who took part in the talks with me they will tell him that there was no confrontation by our Government. The confrontation was with one union only, at that union's insistence,

because it was not prepared to accept the arrangements laid down by Parliament.
Regarding the three-day week, the present Prime Minister has paid tribute to the fact that the three-day week showed that British industry during that period greatly increased its production proportionately. Trade union leaders and employers will tell the right hon. Gentleman that fact, and they will ask him why they cannot still further achieve an increase in times of full working. The breakdown of confidence came later with the present Government.

Mr. Benn: If the right hon. Gentleman is now producing a new argument for the three-day week and saying that it proved what British industry could do under difficult circumstances, he must be even more out of touch with the reality of the situation. Not only were 1½ million workers temporarily stopped during that period, but he ran up administration costs of £1 million for the Department of Trade and Industry alone and did enormous damage to industrial confidence and investment. It is true that the settlement after the change of Government created a sense of well-being because people saw these immediate problems dealt with.
However, I want today to invite the House to look at the more deep-seated problems which have confronted industry in one form or another since the war and which should properly lead Ministers of both parties who have had responsibility for these matters to consider in which direction we should go.
The plain truth is that Britain has suffered a relative industrial decline over a long time under Governments of both parties. If the claim and forecasts which led to a rebuke being administered to Lord Rothschild, or the claim or forecasts of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), in one of his speeches at the time of the General Election, are correct, this country is faced with the prospect of a continued relative industrial decline.
Figures which I shall give to indicate this spread over the record of a number of Governments. Let us take, for example, the average annual growth of manufacturing output from 1953 to 1971. The figures are—for the United Kingdom


3 per cent., for France 6½ per cent., for Italy 7½ per cent., for Germany 7½ per cent., and for Japan 14½ per cent.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: Mr. Michael Heseltine (Henley) rose—

Mr. Benn: If I may be allowed to continue to give some figures, I shall take next the average annual growth of manufactured exports, by volume, in the period 1954 to 1972. The figures are United Kingdom 4 per cent., France 9½ per cent., Germany 10½ per cent., Italy 16½ per cent., and Japan 17 per cent.
If we next take the ratio of imports of manufactures to exports of manufactures over a 10 year period, we find that in 1964 the figure was 57 per cent.—nearly twice as much exported as imported—and it is now 90 per cent. or only 10 per cent. more exported than imported.
Further, if we take investment per employee in manufacturing—that is, the amount of horsepower, machinery and equipment behind the average British worker—we find that in 1971 there was £250 worth of investment behind the average worker in the United Kingdom, while in Germany the figure was £400, in Japan £500, in France £600, and in the United States £700.
If we look at the basic statistics and figures over a long period we find that a mixed economy, in the way in which it has been operating, and in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman sought to defend it in his speech, has not brought to the people of this country the results which they might otherwise have had—

Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman has given the House a vastly impressive catalogue of the great success of the truly free enterprises in the world's economies.

Mr. Benn: The hon. Gentleman underestimates the magnitude of the problems facing us. These problems have extended over a prolonged period. They have had their impact on the people of this country and have contributed in part to the acute and chronic regional unemployment problem in Scotland, in Wales, on Merseyside, in the North and now even in the Midlands. During the last period of high unemployment there was some anxiety in the Midlands about the future there. The unemployment figures published today, for June 1974, still indicate that we

have been unable to solve—not for lack of effort and attention—the disparity in unemployment between the South-East, for which today's figure is 1·5 per cent. and, for example, the North, with a latest figure of 4·4 per cent.
These problems go back for a long time. The record does not give very much encouragement to a belief in the right hon. Gentleman's arguments about his capacity to improve industrial investment. Industrial investment fell by 17 per cent. in the first two years in which he held office. It never recovered. By the time he left office, investment was back to the 1970 level, when he assumed office.
He and his right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, have made many speeches about the need to encourage people to invest. He must know very well that the boom which his Cabinet tried to produce to break through these problems came up against capacity limitations by the autumn of last year, because of the failure to invest in British industry, before the impact of the higher oil prices began to be felt.
The picture I paint is gloomy. I believe that unless we are able to change the prospects in some way, the forecasts which have been given may be correct in that we may be led into graver difficulties. It is not for any lack of trying. The right hon. Gentleman was at one time President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Industry, Trade and Regional Development. All Governments over the period since the war have attempted to correct these underlying problems.
There have been many disagreements on important items of policy, but in general during this period there has been the development of policy on the simple and clear pattern that the basic industries brought into public ownership should be re-equipped by the community which owned them. If we consider the figures for public investment, since 1951 in the public corporations—such as mines, railways and electricity—we shall see that some £24,000 million has been invested in re-equipping these industries. Similarly, Governments have accepted that what is sometimes called in the jargon the social infrastructure—that is to say local authority and central Government expenditure, which impacts very much


on the capacity of investment to improve its own performance—must be improved, and this has led to investment over the same period of about £35,000 million.
This has been a great contribution to our industrial capability because industry depends upon this infrastructure. If we add to that the fact that nationalised industries have been running at a loss, very often as a result of Government policy, we get a subsidy that has come through the provision of nationalised industry services at below cost for private manufacturing and for the benefit of private manufacturing industry. If freight fares are below their true cost, or telephone or electricity charges are below the true cost, then some of this benefit feeds into private manufacturing industry.
As to manufacturing itself, it has been left very largely in the private sector. There has been some financing of innovation by Government. I will give examples from two industries in which there has been public expenditure on innovation. Over the four-year period beginning in 1968–69 and ending in 1972–73, the aircraft industry received £766 million in this way, and the nuclear industry about £228 million. In certain areas, where the Government of the day thought it necessary to carry risks or to promote development, substantial sums of public money have been used.
But in the private sector there has been another tendency which we are bound to notice. That is the steady development of monopoly in private manufacturing industry. Nearly half of the manufacturing now done in Britain is done by 100 companies. In making my own inquiries about the top 20 of these companies, the figures I have been given show that these own 4,000 companies in Britain today.
The right hon. Gentleman says that nationalised industries are big and suffer from the problems of remoteness of management, yet there must be millions of people working in private manufacturing industry in Britain today who do not even know the name of the company that owns the company in which they work.
I come to the question of Government grants—

Mr. Heath: First of all, I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's general

monopoly conclusions. In any case, the machinery for dealing with monopolies exists and has existed under many Governments. If he wants, he can use it. How can these companies of which the right hon. Gentleman speaks be monopolies in a European Economic Community in which tariffs disappear and we are open to competition from all?

Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman should address his mind to the point I made, that half of manufacturing output in Britain today is controlled by 100 companies. The phrase I used was that there was a tendency to monopoly. The right hon. Gentleman gave to these companies their first legislative definition—Category 1 firms. Aneurin Bevan, in more romantic language, had called them the commanding heights of the economy. They remained entrenched in Labour rhetoric until the right hon. Gentleman thought them so important that he provided special arrangements to control their prices and profits under his own Counter-Inflation Act. It is no good his saying that this does not represent an important development in private manufacturing industry.
If the right hon. Gentleman looks at Government grants to private industry, which have come from Governments of both parties and in many categories, he will find that the amount of subvention to private industry for purposes which the House accepted—regional policy or innovation or whatever—has been mounting steadily and rose under his Government, taking the four-year period as a whole, to the figure of some £3,000 million—£2 million a day. If the House is not entitled to take account of this in examining its own future industrial strategy without crude political abuse entering into the argument, then it will not be able to examine why we have done so badly and how we must do better.
It is no good the right hon. Gentleman saying that intervention is itself a controversy between the parties. The legislation which he introduced, the Counter-Inflation Act and other legislation, brought to the private sector a greater degree of detailed interference than had ever occurred even from the National Government during wartime. I have brought with me four sections from his Acts. I will read them to him because


he might possibly not have been aware of what was going through under his premiership.
Let us take first—and I could have taken examples from a number of Acts—Section 19 of the National Insurance Act. It says:
The Secretary of State may require a company to furnish at specified times or intervals with information about specified matters being, if he so requires, information verified in a specified matter.
That is not from a commissar but from a Conservative Government. They intervened. Let me give another example:
The Secretary of State may require a company to take such action as appears to him to be appropriate for the purposes of protecting policy holders.
That is the right hon. Gentleman's National Insurance Act. Let us take the question of the relations between the Secretary of State and private industry:
The Secretary of State shall not issue under Section 61 of the Act of 1967 an authorisation with respect to an incorporated company if it appears to him that any controller or manager of the company is not a fit and proper person to be associated with the company.
Those are not the words of a commissar; they are the words of the right hon. Gentleman in his own legislation.
Let us take as another example the Counter-Inflation Act:
The Minister may by order direct that—

(a) any provision of any Act, whether passed before this Act or later, which relates to prices, charges or to remuneration or other terms or conditions of employment, or
(b) any provision having effect under any Act…shall while this Part of this Act is in force, have effect subject to such exceptions, modifications or adaptations as may be specified in the order."
That was the right hon. Gentleman's legislation, not the legislation of a Labour Government.
I take next the commanding heights of the economy. Listen to the right hon. Gentleman's own Price and Pay Code. Paragraph 6 reads:
For the purpose of control all companies whose main activity is in manufacturing will be divided into three categories.
Is that the ravings of Transport House, or is it the managerial view of the Leader of the Opposition? It is the latter, of course.
The plain truth is that intervention is not controversial between the parties. What matters is for what purpose we intervene, how we intervene, what accountability to Parliament there is for the intervention, and in whose interests we intervene. For the right hon. Gentleman to pretend, for the purpose of his public posture, that the pressure for intervention is a social one when he intervenes consistently in the interests of those whom he supports in society is to mislead the public, who must come to terms with the realities of industrial policy.

Mr. John Gorst: On the other hand, will not the right hon. Gentleman admit—indeed, he has gone some way to admitting it by using the phrase "the purposes of intervention"—that what matters is the fact that there is no dictatorship in the world which has not had nationalisation as an adjunct to dictatorship? This is the problem that we are fighting.

Mr. Benn: I ought not to have allowed the hon. Gentleman to intervene. What were the two last great acts of public ownership in this country? They were Rolls-Royce and Govan Shipbuilders. Both were brought into public ownership by the Conservative Party.
Let us now get beyond the absurd simplicities of the Leader of the Opposition, who is always on the hustings, and come down to examine what is the real question confronting Britain. Does this system of subsidy and intervention work in the national interest? The answer is, "No". Has it produced the results for which it was intended? Again, the answer is, "No".
We have been told to face the facts. The fact is that our mixed economy is not working properly for the purposes for which, to some extent, there is agreement between the two sides of the House in terms of investment, regional policy and a healthy balance of payments.

Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman knows that the first cases of intervention which he cited are particular to any President of the Board of Trade, as it was and later Secretary of State, to ensure that people concerned with financial matters are of proper standing. That is a perfectly seemly thing to do. It does not


deal with the detailed affairs of the company or the financial institutions. Secondly, dealing with his argument about Rolls-Royce and Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, Rolls-Royce found the burden which he placed upon it of the 211 too great to bear, and we had to take the consequences of that, as we did with Upper Clyde Shipbuilders as well.

Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman continued the support both for Rolls-Royce and for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders for a long period before driving both of them into bankruptcy.
I understand the special case of the insurance companies. Who would not after the recent cases? But is there any reason why, if a company is failing the interests of its workers, it should not find Government interest attaching to it as it would if it fails its policy holders? Why is it that the interests of those whose livelihood depends on the companies should be exempt from any Government interest, whereas in the case of the insurance companies, this power should be exercised?
I come then to the policy of the Labour Party. At least the right hon. Gentleman will grant me that the Labour Party makes no attempt to conceal its thinking about future policy. It has always been ready to discuss it in the open. Anyone who follows these matters will have followed them in the 1972 programme: the discussions with the TUC, our statement published in February last year, the programme in 1973, the ship-building policy published in the summer, and the manifesto. The House knows that the discussion within the Labour Party about future policy is always very open, and although accounts are not necessarily accurate of what goes on in individual policy committees, there is full coverage of the discussion.
I said in the only speech that I have made in this Parliament until today that I saw it as my job to implement the policy on which we were elected—an idea which is quite reasonable for an incoming Minister.
Let us look at the difference between the policy making of the two parties. I take first the aircraft industry. We said in our programme that we would bring it into public ownership. It has received

about £555 million of public support over the past four years. We put that in our manifesto. I was asked about it in this House, and I confirmed our election intent. I had informal talks with the SBAC and the trade unions.
Compare that with the way that the right hon. Gentleman's policy developed for the aircraft industry. His Government decided before the election to bring about a private merger between BAC and Hawker Siddeley. He did not tell the House. He did not discuss it with the unions. He sought to bring it about privately.
I have before me a letter dated 4th February addressed to a well-known firm of chartered accountants about this operation of bringing BAC and Hawker Siddeley together. The letter is significant for two reasons. The first is that here was a major piece of Government policy for the aircraft industry being brought forward without consultation with anyone. It is significant, secondly, because in writing to this distinguished chartered accountant, the Department said:
Your remuneration will be at the current rate for your professional services for each day devoted to the consultancy. This rate is £24 an hour or £168 for a working day.
The letter is dated 4th February 1974. While the Leader of the Opposition was going round the country denouncing the miners for their wage claims, he was offering a single chartered accountant £168 a day to do a study of the aircraft industry, without any statement to Parliament.

Mr. Heath: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that, if a Government Department employs a professional man, it should pay him at other than the professional rates? That appears to be what the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting. The Department is right to say that he will be paid at the normal professional rate for his services. How else can a Government get the service of professional men?
Secondly, if there are discussions between firms and the Government, the right hon. Gentleman knows that they are conducted on terms of commercial confidence. That is the only basis again on which a Government can act. Indeed, many of his hon. Friends pressed me constantly when I was Prime Minister to


ensure that commercial confidence was maintained. The right hon. Gentleman is now quoting a private letter from the Department in the era of another administration. I should like to know what justification he has for doing that.

Mr. Benn: I have not given the name of the firm. If this House is to debate the difference between our policy making and that of the Conservative Party, it is important to recognise that in the policy making that we are undertaking we are doing it openly, in consultation with those affected, and not secretly. The matter of the money only draws attention retrospectively to the difference in standards between the amount paid to a chartered accountant, which is probably the standard fee, and the amount which the Leader of the Opposition was ready to see paid to working people under his pay policy.

Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to argue what he likes about the various ways of policy making under given administrations. But he is not entitled to make a general accusation against a professional servant employed by the Government by quoting a particular letter, or to reveal discussions in commercial confidence with a previous administration. There is no justification for that. His advisers in the Department are in error if they have allowed him to see a previous administration's documents, let alone to quote them in Parliament.

Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman will not get away with it like that. The plain truth is that the previous Government sought a solution—I am not commenting whether the policy was right or not—to the problem of the aircraft industry without any statement to the House of Commons and without any consultation whatever with the workers who would be involved and do the job at a rate which is probably not the going rate for chartered accountants. That was in marked contrast to his appeals for restraint at a time when the country was being forced on to a three-day working week as a result of his pay policy.

Mr. Gorst: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May we have your guidance on this matter? If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to a docu

ment, should it not be made available to the House or, alternatively, the whole matter withdrawn?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): I understand that unless a direct quotation is made from a document—[HON. MEMBERS: "It was."] Order. Unless the document is read out—

Hon. Members: It was.

Mr. William Hamilton: Yes, it was. Let us have it. We must have it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is difficult for me at the moment. If the document is as confidential as has been outlined—

Mr. Heath: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State quoted from the document. He purported to read from it. He still has not answered or tried to give any justification for producing a document from a previous administration which he is not entitled to see and is certainly not entitled to quote publicly. I should like to know what possible justification there can be for doing that. The head of the right hon. Gentleman's Department is completely ill-advised if he has allowed him to do so. The head of the Civil Service and the Secretary to the Cabinet ought to inquire into it.

Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that relations between the Government and third parties do not come in the category of papers that pass between officials and Ministers in a previous administration. He knows that in negotiations which occur between the Government and third parties separate rules apply.

Mr. Gorst: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help now as I have the advantage of Erskine May, which, on page 421, states: I understand that it was a private letter.
The rule for the laying of cited documents cannot be held to apply to private letters or memoranda.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a technical but very important matter. There is some question whether


this is a private letter or, because it is from a Department, a public document. Would it not be more helpful to the House if you were to take as much time as you think necessary to consider the matter and, when you have had time to reflect—I think that everyone would like you to have time to reflect because it is an important matter—then to give your ruling to the House?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that the House will feel that that is the wisest solution.

Mr. Benn: I now come to the policies, which I should outline briefly, which the Government have in mind to put before the House after full consideration. They are that, in the circumstances that I have described and against the background that I have outlined, it is necessary for us to have an instrument which would be capable of doing better in solving many of the problems that I have described than in the past.
I am referring to the National Enterprise Board whose contributions would lie in the area of promoting investment and, indeed, in getting more jobs into regions of high unemployment. I am referring also to the planning agreement which would allow the Government and the firms, particularly the category I firms, to lay their strategies side by side to see how community needs could be met.
There are precedents for all these matters. The letters exchanged between the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the chairman of Rolls-Royce, which were not published at the time but have since been published in HANSARD, identified exactly the pattern of planning agreement between Rolls-Royce, and the Government of the day which might form a pattern for our thinking on these matters.
We are saying that in thinking about these deep-seated problems we may conclude that fundamental changes are needed to correct them. If these fundamental changes are to work, they must have consent. The one lesson that we may have learned—indeed, I think that most people should have learned it from the experience of the previous Government with the lesson of the Industrial

Relations Act—is that in the industrial sphere we cannot put a statute in the statute book and expect it to work without consent.
As I made absolutely clear in the first speech that I made on this subject in the new Parliament, we are not seeking confrontation with British management. We are seeking a debate about problems that have not been resolved over a prolonged period. We are seeking a wide measure of agreement about the nature of the problems and about the way in which they might best be tackled.
We are putting forward policies which we have worked out and in which we believe. I warn the Opposition that, if they suppose that those policies will be electorally advantageous to them, they must offer some alternative policies. I suggest that no one hearing the right hon. Gentleman today would believe that he had any answer to the problems that are common between both sides of the House, for at least we share the nation's problems. He has not put forward an alternative. We believe that executives as well as workers in industry and those who live in Scotland and Wales and the regions, will look with sympathy and approval on the proposals that we have been publicly advocating.
This country can do better than it has done. The three-day working week taught us that there is a reserve of production that we have not yet been able to tap. We must do better than the present forecasts indicate.
I believe that our policies will command support. I invite the House to support us tonight. If not, in due course we shall gain that support from the British people and come back able to carry our policies into effect.

5.9 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: The Secretary of State for Industry, in his speech today and in the "trailer" that he gave yesterday to the AUEW conference, appeared to be speaking from the heart with the fervour of an old-style Socialist setting out to remedy just grievances and to put forward proposals in the national interest. But the cold and mechanistic policies that underlie his speech come only from the head. In his speech, the right hon. Gentleman has shown that his head, so far from being


thick, as has sometimes been suggested, might better be regarded as the thin edge of a Marxist wedge. He is using the language and arguments of democratic Socialism to put forward and to justify—and indeed, to conceal—purely collectivist policies, policies which have not been accepted by the electorate and which have raised doubts in the minds of some of his right hon. and lion. Friends, and which I hope will be firmly rejected by the House this evening.
The right hon. Gentleman says in the amendment and in his speech that he wants to take a fresh look at the working of a mixed economy. So do I. He criticised free competitive enterprise for a growing tendency to monopoly. I would not disagree with him in that. But his proposals are not a fresh look; nor, indeed, are they directed against monopoly. He said that he was seeking agreement. But what he is seeking is the agreement of the House and, apparently, of the country to a stale formula of more nationalisation, with greater State intervention in the private sector. The right hon. Gentleman is seeking, in other words, more bureaucracy in large industries, which in many cases are already too bureaucratic to be enterprising. He is also seeking to extend that into the smaller industries, which are now prevented from exercising their natural enterprise only by the policies of the present Government and the fears for the future that those policies engender. The new, or relatively new, idea of appointing union officials as directors will not help. All that that will do is to add yet another element of bureaucracy—the bureaucracy of the unions.
We on the Opposition side of the House accept that Government intervention in industry is necessary. That has been part of Tory philosophy throughout the ages. Of course we accept that legislation is required. Indeed, the Conservative Party has never been the party of laissez-faire economics, from the days of Disraeli onwards. We accept that legislation is required to frame the conditions in which industrialists and businessmen operate. We believe it is required to frame the conditions in which trade unions and their leaders operate, too. But most of the plans that the right

hon. Gentleman is putting forward are irrelevant as well as divisive.
I do not deny that the right hon. Gentleman's analysis of the seriousness of the position of British industry is basically right. But there are very complex problems and complex difficulties. The object of the right hon. Gentleman is to make them seem simple, so that his simplistic remedies can apply and that he can take control away from the workers, from people and from Parliament and concentrate it in the hands of the Government. If he were really seeking to deal with the problems of growing monopoly, he would turn his attention to company law and monopolies legislation in order to protect both customers and work-people. He would seek to ensure that directors exercise the responsibilities of ownership on behalf of their shareholders as well as protecting shareholders' rights. He would be putting forward proper measures for employee participation that can give management and work-people a greater say in the affairs of their company and a greater stake in its success.
But the Government have rejected that concept. They rejected it when they rejected our amendment to the Finance Bill, which sought to spread share ownership more widely through its linking with the Own-As-You-Earn scheme.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Hear, hear.

Mr. Macmillan: When the Secretary of State says that he wishes to alter the balance of power and wealth, he means that he wants to centralise it in the hands of officials—Government officials and trade union officials. He and his colleagues would use wealth for the people rather than spread it into their hands, leaving the people the choice as to how that wealth should best be used. He would use power for the people rather than passing power back to the people to use themselves. This may be Socialist, but it is certainly not democratic.
The attitude of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues is that of an over-possessive mother who continues to make decisions for her children after they have grown up and can well make them for themselves. In the words of the television advertisement, the right hon.


Gentleman appears to think that "Mother knows best."
Of course I agree that it is intolerable that people should feel themselves at the mercy of forces which they do not understand, that their destinies at work—whether they are management or work-people, at any level—are controlled by groups which they do not know and which they cannot identify, and that they are being manipulated for reasons outside their own interest and understanding. That is true whether these groups are of capital or of labour, and whether it is the selfishness of financiers or of trade union leaders that is causing this manipulation.
The Secretary of State suggested that a framework of law was required for the operations of the capitalist system. I agree. I wish that he and his colleagues would see the trade unions as part of that system, a part which also should operate within a framework of law. I quite agree, too, that company law and consultation between management and work-people is not, in itself, enough, and that we need a greater degree of employee participation. But that means all employees—junior management, foremen, those on the shop floor or in the office. It means all the staff—not simply the union leaders but all employees—taking an active part in the affairs of the companies for which they work, at all levels. If it is to be at boardroom level too, it must be by persons elected by the representatives of those working in the firms concerned and not simply by officials appointed by union headquarters.
I would not deny the rôle of the trade unions collectively. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition accepted this rôle of the unions as a group in his tripartite discussions with the CBI and the TUC. I would go further, perhaps, than he would, and consider whether we should not find some method of formalising or even institutionalising the rôle of industry in the management of the economy and the consultation between the employers and the unions concerned. In other words, I should like a fresh look to be taken at the working of our mixed economy, going a little beyond saying "It did not work before, so now we shall make it purely Socialist." I should like a closer look to be taken at the part

that should be played in a modern industrial society by the different elements that go to make up the great complexity of our industry, commerce, business and finance.
The problem is how to reconcile the increasingly inhuman demand for efficiency in modern industry with the human aspirations of those who work in it. I have never believed, and neither has any member of the Conservative Party, that the answer lies in laissez-faire economics which try to make man fit the machine. Yet that is just what the Secretary of State is trying to do. He is not trying to fit his theories, ideas or policies to the needs of people; he is trying to get people to agree to be fitted into his own dogmas and doctrine. He is trying to get agreement with the neo-Marxist policies that he conceals, perhaps from himself as well as from other people, by the Democratic-Socialist language that he uses.
I hope that the House will reject the Amendment and in doing so commit itself to taking a new look, yes, but a look at the mixed economy, an economy which will remain mixed and not be dominated by the theories and dogmas of the Secretary of State.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): May I now quickly give the ruling which the House was kind enough to give me time to consider?
The rule for the laying of cited documents cannot be held to apply to private letters or memoranda. It is also stated in Erskine May, in the light of earlier rulings, that the rule applies to public documents only and not to documents of a confidential nature. Taking all these matters into consideration, I have come to the view that the document cited by the Secretary of State is not one to which the rule applies.

Mr. Moonman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As there is so little time for back benchers to do justice to the debate—less than an hour—is it possible for you to advise all speakers to keep their remarks to, say, five minutes?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: There is just three-quarters of an hour left for back benchers. That will no doubt be borne in mind.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I believe that the matter on which you have ruled is of some constitutional importance as well as being a matter of good manners. I should be grateful if you could make available to my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who is to speak later from the Opposition Front Bench, the words which you have used, and I should be obliged if that could be done as soon as possible.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Certainly.

Mr. Gorst: Further to that point of order. Whilst in no way challenging your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should be grateful if you would consider the fact that the Secretary of State spoke in such a way as to imply that it was not a private but a public document. Consequently, if that is the case and the right hon. Gentleman does not deny it, according to your ruling the document should surely be made available.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have ruled that the document did not come under the category of having to be laid.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. Roy Hughes: The Conservative Party always has to invent a bogyman. There have been many examples in the post-war years. At the 1945 General Election it was Professor Harold Laski, then Chairman of the Labour Party. Then followed Mr. John Strachey. Scurrilous attacks were made over many years on the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan. There were Mr. Frank Cousins and Mr. Hugh Scanlon, the engineering workers' leader, and then a few months ago a practically unknown Scottish miners' leader, Mr. Mick McGahey, suddenly found fame thrust upon him.
Now the attacks are concentrated on that great proletarian revolutionary leader, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. He must feel flattered. I have always thought him to be more in the line of Baden-Powell than Karl Marx. However, he has had the merit of spotlighting how much our so-called private enterprise system relies on State dole. The £2 million a day that my right hon. Friend mentioned is highly relevant in the context of our

discussion on the future of British industry. As my right hon. Friend also pointed out, it has amounted in the past four years to about £3,000 million. There have also been the disguised subsidies to which my right hon. Friend referred, particularly in the charging of lower prices by our nationalised industries—for coal, electricity, gas and telephones.
My right hon. Friend, in the best Boy Scout tradition, believes that promises should be honoured. Labour's plans were made perfectly clear before and during the General Election.
We all know too well that since the end of the Second World War this country's economy has been plagued by one crisis after another. There has been a perpetual conflict between private profit and the public good. There has been a distinct lack of investment in British industry. Instead, many millions of pounds have been invested overseas. The inefficiency of British industry has been characterised by excessive overtime working and a low-wage economy. Indeed, the criticism one could make of the British trade union movement is not that it has pursued its claims too radically but rather that it has made them too lightly.
The aircraft, shipbuilding and machine tool industries would all be bankrupt tomorrow without State aid. Likewise, before they were taken into public ownership, the mines, the railways and the steel industry were all in a state of collapse and starved of investment. Despite these obvious inadequacies, some of our highly paid but incompetent captains of industry firmly believe in their omnipotence, and any attempts radically to restructure British industry are denounced as being almost treasonable.
Nevertheless, much of British industry has been taken over by multinational companies, with control invariably resting on the other side of the Atlantic. With the philosophy of the CBI, mergers and take-overs of that kind can go on without that body batting an eyelid, but when the British people, through their elected Government, wish to take a measure of control, all hell breaks loose.
The whole position was summed up last week by Mr. David Basnet, the so-called moderate General Secretary of the


General and Municipal Workers Union. He said:
It is quite clear that in practice private enterprise left to itself has made Britain uncompetitive and has failed to provide secure employment.
With those words I entirely agree. According to Mr. Ralph Bateman, the President of the CBI, Labour's plans endanger the whole economy and prosperity of our people.
In practice what have the private enterprise buccaneers to offer in the years ahead? Reliable economic forecasts suggest that we shall soon have approximately 800,000 people unemployed, that prices are doubling every five years and that there will be a persistent huge trade deficit. In reality the captains of industry know all too well, even if Labour's plans are implemented to the full, that the main levers of economic power will still remain in their hands. Of course, Labour will need to spell out why changes are necessary. Those who oppose change should put forward intelligent arguments why things should remain as they are. They will want to do better than some of the clap-trap which has been poured out by Aims of Industry. Of course, the Conservative Party with its allies in big business and the Press will point out that Labour's plans for industry will lose Labour the next General Election, as if they wanted us to win anyway.
The establishment of the National Enterprise Board together with an extension of public ownership is not a matter of dogma but a necessity if we are to solve our country's problems. It is vital for the regions—for example, Wales, Scotland and the North-East—because they have suffered long enough environmentally and through heavy unemployment as a result of the ravages of private enterprise.
In the forthcoming General Election the question will inevitably arise of who governs Britain. The head of the CBI is reported as saying on 16th June that Labour's basic proposals in this sphere are not negotiable. Therefore, the Labour Party must put its case clearly and concisely to the British people. It is the people who must ultimately decide the issue. I feel pretty confident about their verdict.

5.32 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: Liberal Members believe that the House and the country have been ill served by those who arranged this debate. Those who would wish to develop some constructive thoughts are restricted to an absurdly short time. That is especially so when we deduct from the time available the long periods which have been used by both Front Benches to lay various smokescreens. The most absurd smokescreen was the letter to the chartered accountant.
I shall try to bring the House back to the document which is at the nub of this debate—namely, the document released towards the end of May by the Secretary of State for Industry entitled "The Current Work Programme of the Department of Industry". Beneath that rather innocuous title there is a description in vague although verbose terms of the Planning Agreements, the National Enterprise Board and the proposals for specific industries to be taken into national ownership.
The document as a whole would outline an interesting experiment if it had been proposed for a country thousands of miles away from Britain, which was securely in possession of its own feeding resources, which had within its borders all the fuel and power necessary to keep itself at work, to fuel its industries and to supply them with raw materials. But for this country in its present economic, geographical and political state, the Liberal Party regard the document as highly irresponsible. We cannot understand the Government taking the pride which they pretend to take in releasing it in the interests of open discussion.
There is a lot to be said these days for fostering open discussion provided that all the realities and all the facts are laid before the public. But to publish a document in such mysterious outline at such a difficult time in our economic history is bound to produce a lack of confidence and a great deal of bewilderment—and so it has. Furthermore, it is irresponsible because it takes no account of the hard facts of the political situation. It proceeds as though somebody has a mandate for 10 or 15 years of Socialism of some brand or other, that plans can be laid and that staff of high quality could be


attracted. That is a very difficult thing to do in this country.
The document suggests that we can proceed on the basis that a long-term plan can genuinely and sincerely be envisaged in the light of our domestic political situation. As a matter of fact, that is not the case. There is no mandate at present for any Government to introduce any dogmatic policies. There is no likelihood that a scheme of this sort would necessarily have a long life, bearing in mind Britain's political frame of mind.
I break off to emphasise the difficulty regarding staff. The National Enterprise Board may or may not be a magnificent concept. It will be clear tonight what view the Liberals take. But even supposing it were a splendid concept which would meet our needs, how can the Secretary of State suppose in the present domestic political situation that he will get the necessary host of people of ability, experience, confidence and public reputation to staff his National Enterprise Board?

Dr. Colin Phipps: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the staff of the IRC under the previous Labour Government was of the highest quality and was easily recruited?

Mr. Wainwright: I considered that and I have two points to put in reply. First, the task of the IRC was minuscule compared with the task that is proposed for the National Enterprise Board. The task of the IRC, from which the Liberals did not completely dissent—indeed, we congratulated it on much of its work—was to engineer certain mergers and the restructuring of industry. Having done that, it largely retired from the scene. However, even with that small task compared with that projected for the National Enterprise Board, it cannot truthfully be stated that the IRC attracted more than a handful of people of manifest ability. Further, there were some weak links in its personnel.
Another astonishing fact about the Secretary of State's document is that it should propose further nationalisation without the modest humility of commenting on the appalling mess which has still to be tackled, which the former Prime Minister tacitly admitted today was not tackled by his administration, and the confusion within our present

nationalised industries. For example, there is the Central Electricity Generating Board. The Secretary of State reeled off figures as though to suggest the mere spending of money on capital investment is sufficient as a token of enterprise and good management. It is not necessary to be a Yorkshireman to feel in one's bones that it is not the spending of large amounts of money which is crucial but the way in which the money is spent.
No student of heavy industry or of power and energy could condone the Central Electricity Generating Board's absurd waste of money over the past 12 years under the supervision of successive administrations. Nobody as yet has seen fit to stop such waste and the appalling misapplication of large sums for which hard-working business men would give their eyes to be able to use in their productive businesses. No one can suppose that we have any claim to have the secret of knowing how to run nationalised industry. That alone, to my right hon. and hon. Friends, would be sufficient reason, even if there were not others, to call a halt to nationalisation, until somebody somewhere finds the secret of running vast industries which have already been taken into public ownership. It is in any case our view—and we think that we are supported in it by very large numbers of people in management and on the shop floor—that ownership is almost irrelevant these days to the question of a successful industrial undertaking.
There might have been something to be said for the document if it could truthfully have been supplemented by a wealth of illustrations of apparent success of schemes of this sort in other, comparable industrially-developed nations. However, search as one will—even some of those mentioned by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton)—one is unable to find a manufacturing economy able to satisfy export customers in all parts of the world from the base of State-controlled manufacturing industry. It is easy to have successful schemes if one has a self-contained economy, but not otherwise.
I am prepared to admit, although experience scarcely supports even this contention, that it is sometimes possible to support nationalisation of certain public utilities and public services, but I


hope that the country has been alerted to the fact that this document positively hope that the country has been alerted proposes nationalisation of manufacturing industry, which moves the whole turgid argument on nationalisation on to a very controversial plane. In my opinion, the Secretary of State for Industry, in spite of his wealth of statistics, did not even begin to make out a case for moving the concept of nationalisation into manufacturing as distinct from extractive and public service industries.
I hope that, within the narrow time limits of the debate, I have made it plain that, although the Liberals are reluctant to be forced into a vote after such a short debate, we shall have no hesitation in supporting the motion—for once, refreshingly terse and concise and, I hope also, to some extent an expression of penitence for past misdeeds—which has been tabled by the Conservative part of the Opposition. It follows that we shall vote against the Government amendment.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Joseph Ashton: I shall not attempt to follow the Liberal train of thought because we are short of time.
It is strange that in this House it is not yet generally realised that three major factors are putting our industry into serious trouble. The first is the "them and us" complex, with all the bitterness between the two sides that that entails. The second is that we persist as a nation in putting £3,000 million a year into defence establishments, maintaining troops abroad and so on, instead of using the money for investment in industry for modernisation. The third is that the nationalised industries have been continually badly run and managed by successive Governments of both parties.
When we in this House consider the Northern Ireland situation, where there is such bitter conflict between the two sides, we are all in favour of power sharing over there. But in industry, where there is also conflict between two sides, power sharing seems to be anathema. Whoever form the Government of the day, we seem to continue with the attitude that no one knows how best to run industry except the bosses in charge. I do not accept that. Fifty per cent. of my constituents work in nationalised industries. I have worked for the British

Steel Corporation and for private enterprise as well. There is a vast difference in attitude between employees of nationalised industries and employees of private enterprise.
For example, there has never been conflict between the miners and Sir Derek Ezra. The conflict was between the miners and the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), because we are continually having economists, either in Whitehall or Parliament, telling us that the way to keep down wages is to start with the nationalised industries. We have seen successive Governments increasing investment in nationalised industries or cutting it back. They have been ploughing money in or pulling it out. They have used the nationalised industries in order to regulate the economy. The nationalised industries have been subjected to the worst form of stop-go in our industry.
Does a man working in a nationalised industry suddenly become stupid or lose his skill or craft? Are his successes any the less? Of course not. The fact is that the productivity of nationalised industries has increased faster, according to reliable experts, than the productivity of private enterprise. Professor Hayek has shown that at a time when the productivity of nationalised industries rose by 4½ per cent., it rose in private enterprise by only 2 per cent.
In the mining industry, a massive reduction of manpower was achieved, and very many pits were run down, with virtually no labour disputes. Compare that with Sir Arnold Weinstock's activities, which involve thousands of people in my union. One sees the difference. The operation in the nationalised industry was carried out with humanity and proper consultation, whereas in the case of Sir Arnold Weinstock's operation the attitude was that of the "weakest to the wall".
Again, I hope that we can get to the stage when the Government and the economists will let the railways solve their problems—for example, by developing the land around King's Cross and a mile north of it, being able to build their own offices, renting out offices, and so on. If we allowed British Railways to exercise what are normal functions, we might find that they got on better.
Last year, the British Steel Corporation was compelled by the Conservative Government to sell its steel at £70 a ton. In Germany the price of steel was £87 a ton, and in France £84. The British industry could have made a massive profit, which would have gone into investment, had it not been prohibited from doing so by the then Government, who insisted that it keep prices down. It is this sort of activity which keeps our nationalised industries in trouble. They are always having to put up with third party interference.
In many instances, the concept of nationalisation we have had in the past has been too clumsy, too much of a blunt instrument. We have taken over whole industries. For example, when we took over the steel industry, the taxpayers had to buy huge masses of scrap and many useless factories which no private business would buy.

Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on Tuesday the Secretary of State for Industry was in Brussels talking to the commissioners about nationalising the remaining parts of the independent producers in the steel industry, or hindering or restraining them by using the influence of the BSC's pricing policy? Is that being fair to people?

Mr. Ashton: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the man in Brussels said, "You cannot do it in the Common Market", which is as good an example as any of how we have given away our freedom by going into the EEC.
Again, there is the attitude of private enterprise towards investment—an attitude which everyone on the shop floor quickly gets to know. When the firm is making a profit, the attitude is that it does not need to buy new machinery; when it is not making a profit, it cannot afford to buy new machinery. I worked on the shop floor for 10 years and on numerous occasions went to the foreman to complain, "This machine is breaking down", or "Give me better tools". There was always an excuse for not providing them, both in good years and bad. When he took office in 1970, the right hon. Member for Sidcup gave massive tax cuts to private enterprise, thinking that it would put the money back into industry in the form of investment. It

did not do so. It ploughed the money into many things, but not back into industry. We have to have some instrument of government not the clumsy mechanism of nationalising a whole industry, which takes a year anyway and means that the State has to take over hundreds of plants and factories; what we need is selective nationalisation, not of an industry but of a company which is perhaps in an area of unemployment, or is under threat of take-over or merger by someone such as Slater Walker or Sir Arnold Weinstock. There was a case in Ealing which was mentioned in the House concerning the Rockware firm which was making a profit. The workers and the management were happy until a giant swallowed it up and closed it down because the land on which it stood was worth more than the company as a going concern to the firm that was taking it over.
Are the workers in these industries to sit back and accept all this or should they lobby the House and insist that their factory is nationalised? I do not know whether Conservative Members ever meet lobbies that come to this House. Invariably they consist of workers, often at a high level, who ask us when we are going to stop this closure of factories by some instrument of nationalisation. There is such a procedure in other countries. In Italy, Alfa Romeo is State-owned. The Italian Government has a holding in a motorway building firm and in shipbuilding. In Israel there are 116 companies in which the State has made an intervention. In Sweden there is a national enterprise board called the Statsföretag. Thirty firms are involved, ranging from tobacco, beer, banks, catering and shipbuilding. Belgium, Canada, Australia and France also have a system of selective nationalisation.
Last year, along with other hon. Members, I went to Japan as a guest of the Japanese Government. We visited Toyota and we tried to discover why that firm produced cars more cheaply and without the strikes or other problems that confront our motor car industry. The answer is simple. The Japanese worker invests 20 per cent. of his wages with the firm for which he works. At the age of 55 he gets the sack and he does not get an old age pension until he is 65, which leaves him


with a ten-year gap when the money is not coming in. He saves and invests in his company while he is at work and that stops him from going on strike because he has a vested interest in the company.
Of course, the workers in this country would never stand for being given the sack at 55, but if the workers and the unions were given an interest in the company for which they were working, and if they knew that the union leaders could have direct access to the Secretary of State for Industry or to their Labour or union MPs so that the Government would step in and stop any takeover, that would lead to a build up of trust, an end to the them and us attitude and the introduction of the sort of power sharing we want to see in Northern Ireland but which some hon. Members would not dream of introducing into industry. Given that, we might start to catch up with the other countries that are now ahead of us.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Tom King: I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) say that he was against the wholesale nationalisation of industries, so I suppose that he will not be supporting the proposal to nationalise the shipbuilding, ship repairing and aviation industries. The other point he made concerned the workers who lobby the House and how many of them express concern for their jobs and want to be nationalised. Anyone who looks at the reduction in employment opportunities in the National Coal Board and British Steel Corporation would not think that they were more secure places in which to work in recent years.
I have an interest to declare in the debate, in that I have spent all my working life in industry including the management of a large factory. I declare that interest with some pride, because it gives me some qualification to speak in the debate. I must tell the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Industry that part of their activities in their previous incarnations was responsible for my presence in this House. I was a manager in a modern industry and I was conscious of the amount of involvement and intervention from Government and

Government Departments in the working of industry. I was acutely conscious, too, that a tremendous amount of that involvement and intervention was by people who had no understanding of how industry worked. Though I did not support the political views of the right hon. Gentlemen, I felt I was working in the interests of the country, but I was conscious that we were dividing our efforts and that we were not pulling in the same direction.
I am sure that the Prime Minister, fresh from Scotland's efforts, recognises that those efforts were not achieved by a team divided against itself. Neither, I am sure, does the Secretary of State for Industry feel that Bristol Rovers got their promotion this year by arguing among themselves. The tragedy of this whole issue is that it is so divisive of the whole British industrial effort.
I do not believe there is any dispute about the background to this debate. The amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) and others of the unofficial Opposition, refers to Britain's economic performance, and we all recognise the need to optimise that in a very competitive world. It refers to the problems of low investment, poor productivity and export marketing. It talks about Britain's indifferent industrial performance, but that is an unfair generalisation. The performance is not indifferent. In some instances it is a splendid performance about which we are often not sufficiently proud. In other areas, however, it is inconsistent and it is towards the solution of that problem that the debate should be directed.
The first thing the Prime Minster should do when he replies to the debate is to make clear the present standing of these proposals. On the one hand we are told by the Secretary of State for Industry that these are firm proposals, that this is what was in the Labour Manifesto, that the country has been told about them, and that it is what is going to happen. However, we read in the amendment standing in the name of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends that the time has come "to re-examine". Are we reexamining or are we dealing with firm proposals?
In reply to the President of the CBI the Secretary of State for Industry said that


this was the start of a great debate. Is this a great debate or has the debate already been decided and are the proposals which have been issued his firm commitments? This is an important point which could reassure many in industry. If the decision is already taken about the policy what is the justification for the Government's view? We have seen in their analysis of the problems that British industry faces, all the problems of performance in many areas. But we have had remarkably little evidence, as the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) said, that the solutions proposed by the Government will contribute one jot or tittle to improving our performance. The evidence is very much to the contrary.
The Secretary of State has conducted a most effective campaign and it has rubbed off on the hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Hughes) and others. The phrase "£2 million a day" has become stuck in many people's minds. This most misleading set of statistics is intended to give the impression that private industry is totally incapable and a cripple that needs propping up from all directions. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is a foul slur on a great number of British companies because he knows that a lot of that public money is concentrated in relatively few sectors, in certain companies which pay no tax because they make no profits, but which for social reasons Governments have decided to support.
There are many other highly efficient companies receiving very little Government support which make a considerable contribution to the social capital of this nation.
The hon. Gentleman kindly sent me a copy of his May Day speech in Bristol. It would be difficult to imagine a more misleading presentation by the grouping together of the total figures for Government aid, for the corporation tax, and for dividends.

Mr. John Garrett: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the recipients of public funds should be publicly accountable?

Mr. King: On the point concerning accountability, the hon. Gentleman was not in the House at that time, but he may know that I worked in the then Depart

ment of Trade and Industry in a very junior capacity. We introduced arrangements to publicise, under our Industry Act 1972, full reports on the workings of the Department and on the funds. I support the need for that.
The tragedy in the present situation is that a solution which has been advanced, with no evidence that it is likely to solve the problems that we face, could be seen by many to be part of the problem we face. I was struck by an example last year where there was a severe outbreak of equine influenza. A serum was produced for inoculation to prevent that disease. The serum killed a considerable number of horses to which it was given.
There is a very close parallel here. What is advanced as the cure may be very much worse than the disease from which we suffer.
In a perceptive article my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Chataway) pointed out that perhaps the biggest problem we face is that industry has become a political football during the last 25 years. The uncertainty this has spread has done enormous damage to industry's plans, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition quoted the damage done in this way to investment in the steel industry over a considerable period. I accept that there must be a close liaison between companies, banks, sources of finance, between unions and Government. There must be a close working relationship. There must be a partnership of trust. We live in a competitive world. We are up against other countries and other industries strongly backed by their Governments.
The Secretary of State for Industry cited our poor performance. He cited other countries which had done better, which were exactly those countries where there has been that close working trust and relationship in their industrial activity between the banks, the companies, the unions and Governments. They have been working together as a team. Poor Great Britain Limited at this time has been arguing amongst itself. Its industry has become a political football. I wonder whether right hon. Gentlemen realise how much damage they do. At this minute a campaign is being run in the right hon. Gentleman's Department for yet more regional investment. It is the recipients of these investments who


are being pilloried by the right hon. Gentleman as cripples in need of State aid. How does the right hon. Gentleman think that people who read that advertisement will react when they read his speeches about companies in receipt of public money which will have to submit to public accountability and make themselves more liable to State control? Does he think that will encourage industrial investment in the regions?
There is within his responsibility a need to encourage industry, both nationalised and private, in our mixed economy. The attempts he has made through his campaign to justify his own philosophies have done nothing to improve or enhance the standing of British industry in the eyes of the people in this country or abroad. I am proud of the companies in my constituency. Courtaulds and Clarks as two examples, are outstanding British companies. I ask hon. Members, are there not many companies within their constituencies, of which they are equally proud and which have excellent working relationships? Those are the companies pilloried by the right hon. Gentleman, whose statements are doing so much damage to the future investment position of this country.
The right hon. Gentleman himself has proved my point. He has given, this week, £3,500,000 to one company, not on condition that it will be managed by a Government Department, but on condition that the investment is managed by another substantial British company, in which he has confidence.
When he is faced with the realities of the situation that is the action he has to take. And yet his sweeping proposals spread right across the whole field of British industry, and his threats of Government intervention, in vague and in specific forms, are doing enormous damage.
It is vital that the substantial reductions in investment which I know are imminent in many sectors, should be avoided, not merely in domestic investment but in inward investment.
I therefore hope that the vote tonight will make clear that the elected representatives of this country are having no more nationalisation.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. Eric Moonman: I shall not follow the dangerous road taken by the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), which is one of overstatement. It would take more pluck and time than I have.
A very complex relationship between Government and industry has existed over the last 50 years. The partnership is frequently a reluctant one—never more so than at the outset of a period of Labour Government when, as is happening now, the full resources of the CBI. Aims of Industry, and similar organisations, are ranged to do battle with the Labour Government. I suppose the reaction is even more violent than usual this time because the Labour Party manifesto includes several schemes for increasing the degree of Government intervention, new company law, some degree of industrial democracy, an extension of public ownership, a national enterprise board and a planning agreement system.
The Leader of the Opposition has made a drastic assault on these proposals this afternoon and on previous occasions. He has prophesied disaster in all directions. He has said, "Up to half of Britain's manufacturing capacity is brought under State control in all important respects," a prospect, which would, he says, be greeted with revulsion upon the part of the British public.
My response to that is that it would be an excessive, even absurd exaggeration of Labour's intentions even for a Tory politician to say that. But the tragedy of the posturing of the Leader of the Opposition is that it seems that this is the ground he has chosen on which to fight the next General Election—"Benn, the bogyman of industry". It is even possible that the Tories could win an election fought on this ground, but it would be dishonourable victory, bringing politics into total disrepute and carrying in its train a further deterioration in industrial relations—an area in which the Leader of the Opposition has already failed and in which he will continue to fail unless he learns from his past mistakes, of which there are many.
If one looks at the policy documents carefully one sees that there is nothing shattering about their proposals. There is a further danger that we on the


Government side face. To my right hon. Friend I say, in all sincerity, it is surely inadvisable to overstate the implications of some of these policies. He would be wise not to attribute to the policies, areas of authority and control which are neither possible nor even desirable. What are the elements of our industrial policy? There is the National Enterprise Board. Although there has been some misunderstanding about its relationship to the former IRC, it will nevertheless fulfil a key rôle in the restructuring and development of processes and industries. It will also include employment policies which surely need to be taken into account when looking at the restructuring of industry. That, I maintain, is good industrial sense.
The extension of public ownership is aimed primarily at aircraft, shipbuilding and marine engineering industries. Those are the two main areas in which most of the investment already comes from Government and many of the products are sold to Government. To intervene on behalf of the State is good industrial sense.
Then there is the question of consultation. The Department of Industry has already indicated that this is no more than a recognition of the realities of industrial life and like the moves of less secrecy in the Department's work, is a necessary improvement in communications, which should not be confused with a change in the responsibility for decision making. Certainly better communications are at least likely to lead to more realistic decisions. That, too, is good industrial sense.
So it is not a revolution that Labour is planning for industry and it is an error to suggest that it is. The success of our industrial policy depends on a realistic attitude to what can be achieved. These important but relatively modest proposals which we are putting forward can be looked at again in the light of subsequent experience. I am not suggesting—I do not think that my right hon. Friend is, either—that they will immediately change the balance of power in industry. There is a place for free enterprise under Labour's plans. My right hon. Friend said in Bristol last week that the Government looked to the small and medium firms for real enterprise and initiative, and that he intended to

ensure that industrial policies did more to help the small business man.
At a recent meeting of the Small Businessmen's Association which I and one or two other hon. Members attended, I found that the real despair of small businessmen was not about my right hon. Friend's policies. They were much more concerned about the way in which they were being gobbled up by the larger corporations, the way in which they found it extremely difficult to get finance, and the tough way the banks were dealing with them. It is extraordinary humbug for Conservative Members to say that the Government are the prime evil and cause of the small firms' anxiety.
Industrialists are fond of defending their demands for self-regulation on the principle, once stated in the United States, that "what is good for General Motors is good for the USA". But there are two reasons why it does not follow that what is good for Britain's biggest companies, that which allows them to make the largest profits, is good for this country. The first difference between us and the United States is that many of Britain's largest companies are not ultimately accountable in Britain—wholly-owned subsidiaries of foreign international companies. I am not knocking them. I take the point about their value and contribution to the nation's resources. I am simply stating the facts about the way their decisions are made.
The second reason is that if return to shareholders is the only criterion recognised by private enterprise, they may pursue a course of action wholly damaging to the economy.
For example, Jim Slater of Slater Walker, recently announced that his company had sold off more than £50 million of assets and intended to sell more because the cash loaned on a short-term basis at 15 per cent. gave a better return for less risk than actively engaging in manufacture. If that example were followed by other companies, it would have a disastrous effect on employment and the economy.
What is needed now is massive investment in new plant and equipment in many of our industries, so that we have a sound basis for future economic growth.
Yet over the last 10 years, at least, private enterprise firms have ignored


every plea and incentive from Governments of both parties to increase capital investment.
They failed to increase capital investment during the Tories' 18 months of "heady free enterprise" capitalism, just as they had done under Labour interventionism. Even the £3,000 million of subsidies poured into private enterprise in the last three years has not changed the situation. So it is clearly unrealistic to expect private enterprise to act in the national interest without further Government intervention.
This is one of the considerations behind Labour's plans for industry and the planning agreement system is the key. Planning agreements are not new. They have been in use in Belgium, France and Italy. The value of the planning agreement, I would suggest, is that the companies concerned would supply up-to-date information on past performance and advance programmes on home and overseas sales, regional distribution of employment, price control and domestic investment levels, industrial relations practices and product development. The companies and Government will begin to share information.
The Government would give financial aid on the basis of written agreements to allow the programmes formulated to be met. Most intelligent companies will recognise that this is a tremendous spur to their own development and planning. Ultimately, if Government is asked for support and help from companies, at least some evidence will be there on which to make a proper appraisal.
Industry has no cause to complain about the extensiveness of Labour's plans. They are primarily the result of industry's failure to respond to the needs of the nation. But it has no cause for alarm either. The planning agreements system is the best chance that this country has yet had of building a fruitful partnership between Government and industry.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: The one thing that emerges clearly from this debate is that no one in Britain doubts the severity of the economic uncertainties that now face us. They are undoubtedly the gravest that anyone of my generation has ever had to contemplate. The

economic difficulties exist but the threat to the whole of our society arising from them is also more worrying and uncertain than anything that I can remember.
Without doubt, inflation has brought hardship to millions, both in threatening their earnings and eroding their savings. The stability of our society faces strains the pressure of which is incalculable. The concept of an ordered society faces militancy from an ever-widening group on a scale never seen before. The wider the militancy the wider the growing despair among those people traditionally associated with the stability of society. Hon. Members have no choice but to face up to the grave and rising scepticism with which increasing numbers of our electors regard our ability to cope with these problems.
It is against this background that we debate the Government's industrial policies. We should, as a nation, be deploying every device of energy and enthusiasm to create a great industrial partnership, based upon trust. Instead, the speeches of Ministers and back benchers and their supporters in the country have been continually bent upon destroying the credibility of the system upon which the vast creation of wealth totally depends.
There is now to be a harmful and debilitating clash between the Socialist minority in this country and the rest of us who do not believe in that system, in order to further their nationalisation and collectivist aims. To the overwhelming majority of our citizens these proposals are quite unacceptable. This certainly applies to anyone who voted Conservative or Liberal, but I believe also that many members of the Labour Party itself do not want their jobs transferred from free enterprise to the State sector. This would give to a reasonably detached observer the opportunity to find a basis for consensus upon which to organise industry which would command the overwhelming support of the people of this country.
But this is a Government not only without a majority but driven by a minority within their own ranks. This country is constantly expected to pay the price which the Socialist extremists within the Labour movement demand for their continued support of a Labour Government.


That is what the National Enterprise Board, the planning agreements and the endless attacks on free enterprise are all about.
Let us be clear about the differences between the two parties. We have no doubt that the free enterprise system has provided, across the world, greater growth compatible with personal liberty than any system devised to take its place. Where it falls down, we would not hesitate, and never have hesitated, to reform, regulate or improve it. We have done this consistently, as in the Companies Bill which the House was considering before the election. A whole range of legislation has been introduced by one Government after another to change the basis of the relationship between employee and company—the Factories Acts, the Safety Acts, Acts to protect the environment, the Contracts of Employment Acts, and so on. There has been endless legislative innovation to change the basis of that relationship. That is right, and that is an on-going process. If ownership is not widely enough distributed let us distribute it more widely; if growth is too slow let us learn from the examples of the countries which have achieved a higher rate of growth than we have. What I find so incredible about today's debate is that we heard the Secretary of State for Industry list one country after another which had done things better than we had, and in every one of those countries the free enterprise system was seen to be part of the accepted way in which Government and industry managed their affairs.
By all means let us regulate and let us control; by all means let us seek constantly to update and overhaul the environment within which the system operates, but let us not try to change the basis of that system which has done so much to create the wealth of the people in this country.
If one wants more employee participation, that should be achieved in a direct way rather than through Government ownership of companies, with all the ossifying effect that that produces. If communication in industry is bad—and it is bad in many instances—there is no shadow of evidence to suggest that communication is better in a State monopoly than in a well-run private company. The

argument lies heavily in favour of the free enterprise system.
If a great company is failing in its duty in the way in which it serves the community, I see no objection to the Government's discussing with the shareholders or their representatives the way in which things can be improved, but the essence of the situation is that we have to find a basis of trust so that the Government, shareholders, employees and management can work with the common purpose of trying to improve upon the system.
The reality is that across the world Governments are seeking close relationships with the people who work in industry. My right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) was right in saying that there is nothing new in the concept of intervention. What one has to understand is the way in which intervention can work to the positive benefit of the people, and also the way in which it can work to their positive harm.
The difference between the two sides of the House is that we believe that progress is possible only if there is a basis of trust between the management of companies and the Government. There is nothing new in corporate plans being discussed between Government and large companies. It is one thing for these companies to discuss their corporate plans with the Government if they know that the purpose of Government is to help build upon the success of the companies. But it is quite another if they realise that they will meet one problem which the National Enterprise Board is bound to come up against and of which we have had a classic example today. How on earth can the managers of a company be expected to share their problems, anxieties and difficulties with a Minister if they know that within a relatively short time he may use those arguments and difficulties to buy into those companies at knock-down prices? How does one face that dilemma? How can one expect British companies to become involved in a dialogue of confidential information with Ministers and their officials on what both sides believe to be important issues if what is said is revealed at the Dispatch Box of the House of Commons and if letters which are written by officials of the Department are quoted from but not


published by the Minister who cannot explain how he came to have the letters in the first place?
What British industry must understand is that today we have seen the first glimpse of the way in which the National Enterprise Board will work. Confidential discussions which I had with these companies, on a basis of trust and with a common purpose of seeing whether there was a possibility of a voluntary agreement to help the companies, have been revealed. The discussions came to nothing, but in the hands of a differently motivated Minister that, tonight, becomes a sinister conspiracy to be played with politically for his own cheap party ends.
Let there be no doubt that there is today a massive need for a process of education to make sure that all our citizens understand just how dependent we are upon the free enterprise system. It is not just a question of shareholders. We have to realise that what is involved are pension funds, life assurance policies and small savings. All these are dependent upon the growth, energy and enterprise of the free market, and there is no evidence from any part of the world—and none was produced by the Minister—that there is a better way of seeing our people prosper more, faster or to their greater interest than free enterprise.
What is to happen now? We are told that 50 per cent. of the directors of companies are to be appointed by the members of those companies who happen to belong to a trade union. I have read—as no doubt many others have—the document which argues in favour of worker participation in this way. It must rank as one of the least honest political documents ever produced in this country, because all the argument is in favour of participation by all the employees up to the point. Then it says that it cannot be done in that way because the trade unions would not agree to it. The reality is that if someone joins a trade union he will have a vote, but if he does not he will be disfranchised. The harsh reality is that in many parts of the world that kind of democracy exists, but in this country democracy could never be so described.
We are to have a National Enterprise Board—I think that it could more appropriately be called a National Extravagance

Board—and the sector of industry which in 10 years has produced profits of £28,000 million, after allowing for the repayment of all the grants, loans and aid that it has had, is to be set against a nationalised sector which, in the whole of its existence, has lost on its trading activities a total of £1,650 million.
We are told that the proposed system has some inherent advantage. But the public sector has had £5,000 million of invested capital written off for all time, at that cost to the taxpayer. We are told that there are to be planning agreements with the top 100 or 180 companies, but we cannot be told which companies are involved. Where is all this open Government, this free consultation and discussion with all the people concerned? Why can the British public not be told which companies are involved in these proposals for the first wave?
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be familiar with the old dialogue about the commanding heights—and that is what the Socialists are about—but once the commanding heights had fallen they moved to stage 2 which involves the 100 or 180 companies. The question that one has to ask is: if the Government were able to achieve control of the top 100 or 180 companies, would that be the end of the road?
Perhaps the House will forgive me if I quote from page 14 of the document on the National Enterprise Board. It says:
The direct contribution of the NEB companies would also be matched by a 'pull' effect on private companies of a kind which previous planning and financial innovation did not promote—both because many private companies would be compelled to follow the NEB companies lead, or lose market shares and profits".
It is not just a question of the top 100 or 180 companies, but of all the companies underneath them which can be influenced by the buying powers of those top companies.
If we may consider the position that follows, we see that there is a further quotation that all those companies which are smaller than the top 100 or 180 companies and have been receiving Government aid—for aims which in many cases have been socially desirable but uneconomic—are likely to find that they are having to negotiate shares in continuation for development assistance from the Government. If anyone has any doubt,


here we have the Labour Party stating that where the State puts money into private enterprise it shall take shares in return. Let us have no nonsense about the top 100 companies. It merely starts with the top 100 companies. There are no lengths to which the Government are not committed by the document which we are considering tonight.
The House will want to consider what is the motive behind the Government's proposals. Is it efficiency? No example has been given in the debate, nor will one be given because there is not one to give, to show that efficiency is the goal to which we are striving. The reality is that the goal is the creation of a Socialist society, wished for by only a small group of extremists who power the Labour movement. That is what is behind the industrial policy of the Labour Party.
Let us put the question to the test, and let us ask who wants this particular policy. We are told that it is all subject to consultation. An article in the Sunday Times in April gave an example of the Secretary of State's method of consultation. The journalist writing the article stated, referring to the Secretary of State:
To illustrate what he means, he had the shipbuilders in a few days ago, nervously asking what he meant to do with their industry. He simply told them that he was going to nationalise them, without any question and now could they get down to discussing details …".
That is the sort of consultation which the right hon. Gentleman believes in.
We can go a stage further and ask how many workers in the industries concerned will be given a choice. Will there be ballots, votes and questionnaires to find out which employees want to be nationalised? Will there be even a referendum on the change of status in the ownership of the company involved? No, of course there will not be any form of genuine consultation. All we shall see will be a steam rollering through the House of Commons of legislation to give power to the Government, without any attempt at genuine consultation with people outside.
The reality was again revealed to anyone who doubts it when the point arose that supposing after the experiment, the Government's great Socialist step forward, people want to change their minds and return to a free enterprise system. Would they have power to do that?

We have the view on page 19 of the pamphlet on the National Enterprise Board, in which it is explained what happens when people want to opt out of Socialist experiments. The view is perfectly clear:
The Labour Party has pledged itself to renationalise without compensation those parts of the nationalised industries hived off by the present Conservative administration.
So it is one-way traffic. One can nationalise, take over and Socialise, but one can never go back, and that is a lesson the House will not want to forget.
We have heard in the past few weeks that because of the anxiety created by the stirrings of the industrial ownership argument, the Prime Minister has once again assumed charge of this crucial policy area. Of course he will argue that he never lost charge and that it was under his control in the first place, but that does not satisfy many of us as much as the Prime Minister would wish. The harsh reality is that the Prime Minister actually believed in an Industrial Relations Bill and actually believed in Europe. He believed in both those things until he could no longer control the small, militant groups on his back benches, who would not have it. Was the Prime Minister in charge, or the militants?
That situation was as true of the Government's industrial policy as it was of previous policy. If the Prime Minister is really in charge will he explain to the House what the Secretary of State for Industry was doing in Brussels earlier this week, in discussion with the Commission to find out whether he could use powers open to him to squeeze the private steel sector of industry out of existence. I see that the Prime Minister did not know that the Secretary of State was in Brussels. That is very good—the Prime Minister has learned something tonight.
It may be interesting to ask where the policy which we are now considering came from, as we consider that the jobs of virtually 90 per cent. of employees, and savings, investment and pension funds in a free enterprise system are at stake. I would have thought that the Labour Party would have taken the trouble to set up a deep, penetrating and objective inquiry into the free enterprise system to discover whether it worked.
The pamphlet about the National Enterprise Board was produced by two


of the more extremist members of the Government party—four academics, two trade union officials and one other chap about whom I cannot find out anything, despite having spent the whole morning trying. That is the composition of the study on which the ownership of British industry is to be put up for bids by the National Enterprise Board.
What are to be the consequences now? I believe that there will be an immediate hostility in industry following the argument put forward by the Secretary of State for Industry that wherever industry accept grants it is likely to mortgage the shares in its company. There can be only one consequence of that, namely that companies will be reluctant to accept grants. They will seek development overseas, or in those parts of this country where there will be no pressure for them to be involved with Government at all. The parts of Britain which will suffer most from this will be those parts which we most seek to help—the regions.
We shall see a growing involvement of management in the hostility building up against the doctrinaire proposals, when they should be trying to build up the economic strength and prosperity of their companies. It is no accident that statistics from the Department of Industry for April and May show that industrial confidence has slumped to the lowest recorded level ever. There have been only four occasions when confidence has been so low, and three of them have been under Labour Governments.
Overseas companies considering investment in this country will wait to see what threat to their investment will be embodied in the Government's proposals. British companies will consider investing overseas, to ensure that they are as far removed as possible from the Government's policies.
The thrusting, driving companies which are getting bigger will decide that when they get to a certain level they should not get any bigger, because they may be near the point at which the Government will want to get more deeply involved with them.
We are faced with a major collapse of business confidence as a result of the Government's activities. The message to go from the House of Commons is that industry can no longer sit silently while

faced with the greatest threat ever to its survival. It is not enough for those sitting on these benches to continually point out the difficulties which confront industry. Industry must become as articulately involved and as determined in defence of the free enterprise system as those who seek to destroy it have shown themselves to be. This is its last chance.

6.39 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I offer congratulations to the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) on taking over the Shadow Industry portfolio, and on his appointment to the Shadow Cabinet. He will certainly raise the average level of quality on the Opposition Front Bench. I wish him a long stay, but as we are now getting Shadow Government reshuffles every week or two, and liquidations and purges almost every day, I fear that he will be fortunate if he survives three weeks in his present appointment, and after a short period we shall read that he has switched to a Shadow appointment in education, or gone into oblivion.
I was interested in his point about consultation. He apparently objected to the suggestion from my right hon. Friend that the policy was there, but that there could be no consultations about the details. That is exactly what the hon. Gentleman's Government said about the Industrial Relations code, "Take it or leave it". We say that the principles have been laid down by the electorate.

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will remember that in the months leading up to the 1970 General Election my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Carr), who was then responsible for the Labour portfolio, tried every ingenuity he knew to persuade the trade unions. They refused.

The Prime Minister: In all the months up to the 1974 election we made plain to the country that this was our policy. It was in the manifesto. It is the election result that the right hon. Gentleman is contesting, not the policies of the Government.
I should like to begin also by thanking the Leader of the Opposition for his characteristic courtesy in informing me that he intended to take part in the debate—a gesture slightly marred, I


thought, by his decision to wait to do this much longer than is usual—until he knew that I was out of the country.

Mr. Heath: One does not usually give away these matters but as the right hon. Gentleman is being so unpleasant, is he not aware that his Chief Whip approached me on Monday and asked whether I could kindly let him know within 24 hours whether I intended taking part in the debate. I said that of course I would do so, and on Tuesday morning he was told.

The Prime Minister: On the contrary, I checked before I left London. It was checked with his office before I left London, at three o'clock. The speakers were to be the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths)—[Interruption]. I heard at midnight on that day that my Chief Whip was told this at six o'clock. The right hon. Gentleman knows that this never happened when we were in opposition.
I have a charitable interpretation because, whatever suspicions I might have had about his motives, I realised how unfair they might have been when yesterday, in Bonn, I received a copy of the Daily Mail with a headline which read:
Tory rebels put Heath on the Mat. MPs lash out at 'Softly, Softly' policy.

Mr. Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister effectively wasted the entire time allotted to Prime Minister's Questions today. Is it in order for him to continue to waste what little time we have left for this debate? Will he now address himself to the motion?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter of order.

The Prime Minister: These interruptions are, of course, cutting into the next debate which should start at Seven o'clock. [An HON. MEMBER: "Get on with it."] I am sympathising with the right hon. Gentleman. The Daily Mail said that the right hon. Gentleman had been summoned to explain—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about nationalisation?"] The right hon. Gentleman did not get near it for the first 10 minutes of his speech. The report said the right hon. Gentleman had been summoned to explain his immediate political aims to a rebellious meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs in the Commons. I

suddenly realised why he was speaking. I applaud this. I support it. How much better to convert this "softly softly" label and secure an alibi by pleading a previous engagement, in the Chamber.
Although I welcome the fact that he spoke, I did not welcome the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I thought it was the most hysterical we have ever heard from him. He started with the Budget, and touched on the Common Market and many other matters before he came to the main theme. Before I come to the substance—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman really tried to make a motion of censure speech today, but he has not got the guts to table a censure motion because he is too afraid of the consequences.
I know how flattered my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry will be about the references to him today. The Tory Party has an almost manic obsession with my right hon. Friend. I have been able to confirm—I was just talking with him—that he is neither unduly depressed nor unduly flattered by this interest. The Tory Party has always lived on demonology—

Mr. Jeffrey Archer: What about the motion?

The Prime Minister: I shall come to that as quickly as the right hon. Gentleman did. A few years ago Mr. Frank Cousins had become the demonological target of the Tory Party.

Mr. Archer: What happened to him?

The Prime Minister: There was Soskice, Strachey, Mahatma Ghandi, Pandit Nehru and the rest. A week or so ago, Hugh Scanlon joined the roll of honour. Then, by a major policy decision of the Tories, they attacked my right hon. Friend.
The right hon. Gentleman's speech today was one of those typical Central Office briefs, read rather better than usual. He dealt with the nationalised industries in a substantial part of that speech. He attacked the record of the nationalised industries. He attacked the writing off of capital. He will correct me if I am wrong but I thought he said that the nationalised industries were the curse, or the evil, of this country and had been for 25 years.
Does the right hon. Gentleman deny that every study undertaken shows that productivity in the nationalised industries has risen far faster than productivity in private industry over those 25 years? Does he deny that if private industry had shown the same productivity increase Britain would not for 20 years have been facing such economic problems?
If the right hon. Gentleman felt that way, why is it that during 13 years of Conservative rule, and then the three and a half years when he was Prime Minister, these industries were not denationalised? Not even Selsdon Man himself denationalised them. He denationalised land and the Carlisle State pubs. If he believes what he said this afternoon, why did he not have the guts to denationalise and hand over to private enterprise?
The right hon. Gentleman knows why. He has said it sometimes from this Box and we have both agreed. It is because the essential services concerned, most of them in labour-intensive industries, are loss-making in almost every country in the world, whether privately or publicly owned. I refer to railways, coal, atomic energy, the health service, postal services. They are all loss-making and subsidised—including in America. The right hon. Gentleman's argument is characteristically meretricious.
Now we come to the policy which seems at long last to have brought the Leader of the Opposition out of his shell, following his explanations on radio and television about why we have not had any opposition out of him until this week. I know why we have not and he knows too. I know what he was waiting for.
Public ownership, planning agreements, the Industry Act, the National Enterprise Board—these were included in Labour Party policy in Opposition and in Government over a long period of time. They were set out in our programme of 1973, and adopted at our conference last year. They were set out in the manifesto published before the election. They were explained to the country throughout the election—[Interruption.] I know that the right hon. Gentleman thinks that he won the election. But he is wrong. He did not.

Mr. Peter Rost: He beat you.

The Prime Minister: During that election I made a speech every night including this imaginative and totally relevant concept. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has an inbuilt allergy to the idea of a newly-elected Government carrying out what they have told the country in the election they would carry out. I know he does not understand that. During the right hon. Gentleman's three and a half years after June 1970, we saw how allergic he was to carrying out his pledges: prices at a stroke, the Common Market and whole-hearted consent—[Interruption.] The Opposition do not like being reminded of this, but they will find themselves getting it again, again and again. Then there was help for owner-occupiers, homes for all, no legislation on wages—[Interruption.] The Opposition have a wonderful slogan to put across in the next election after all that. The number of broken pledges and still more the systematic organisation to ensure that those pledges were broken has no parallel in this country since the beginnings of party government. I know of no Government who have broken more pledges than did the right hon. Gentleman's between 1970 and 1974.
When The Times told us—I do not regard public opinion polls as accurate within a point or two, but it seems to be shared by the Daily Telegraph this morning—that a number of Conservative voters considered that the Conservative Party should get on without him and appoint a new leader, this is probably due to the broken pledges between 1970 and 1974—

Mr. Peter Tapsell: Mr. Peter Tapsell (Horncastle)rose—

The Prime Minister: No, I shall not give way. The hon. Member for Hon-castle (Mr. Tapsell) would really improve the Opposition Front Bench, but until he comes to it I cannot give way to him. At least one of my suggestions, made in a radio broadcast, has been brought to that Front Bench, and I am delighted.
Now the Leader of the Opposition has suddenly become obsessed in this past week with his new-found discovery that the Labour Party is a Socialist party. I wonder why this fact did not occur to him in the months before the election and why it was not made a major issue in the election.
I made a speech—I am sorry to say nearly an hour long—about our proposals for public ownership at the Labour Party Conference last October. I set out precisely what our proposals were and always had been. There was no comeback from the right hon. Gentleman at his conference or in the months that followed. We heard little of it in the General Election. The only contribution on public ownership which I saw the right hon. Gentleman reported as making was the case that he made in the election that the vast resources of the Scottish and Celtic Sea should not adhere to the advantage of the British people but to the advantage of mainly multi-national companies based wholly or partly outside the territorial jurisdiction. Following what I spelled out in the General Election, our proposals on North and Celtic Seas gas and oil will be brought before this House before the Summer Recess.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to this again today. He was absolutely hysterical today about foreign oil interests pulling out. Did they pull out from Norway, where there is a Socialist Government with their carried interest system with 80/20 per cent. public participation?
The right hon. Gentleman made nothing of this in the General Election. He spent most of the election advocating the therapeutic qualities of a three-day working week and pressing the theme "Who governs Britain?"—a question which we found fascinating during the weekend following the election. The right hon. Gentleman said today that the Labour Party was greedy for power. What about the weekend after the election, which he spent negotiating with the Liberals and was said to be interested in the support of the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists? There was even a time, it was reported, when he intended to get the Ulster Unionist extremists to vote for him, until that was vetoed by the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw).
On our proposals for nationalisation, we heard nothing from the right hon. Gentleman. Only in the past few days—

Mr. Churchill: Get to the motion.

The Prime Minister: I thought that the complaint was that the Opposition heard too much from us. Now they say they

have heard nothing from us. They had better make up their minds about it. I have made several speeches about it, one as recently as last Friday night. The right hon. Gentleman has an arrangement with Transport House whereby he is supplied with documents, so he will have read it himself on Saturday morning—

Mr. Churchill: Mr. Churchill rose—

The Prime Minister: No, I shall not give way—

Mr. Churchill: Mr. Churchill rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Churchill) must sit down. The Prime Minister is not giving way to him.

The Prime Minister: I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman has not been informed of our proposals and our policy. It occurred to me that the grand master of the U-turn was wondering at one time whether to adopt our nationalisation policy for inclusion in Tory policy. Some of his so-called supporters would not have been surprised in view of some of his U-turns, and if he had thought that he would ensure votes by it, he would have done it.
What we said in the manifesto is the policy of the Government, as it was the policy of the party before and during the General Election. That has not been in question at any time.

Mr. Churchill: What is the price of it?

The Prime Minister: Winning Stretford in the next General Election.

Mr. Churchill: Mr. Churchill rose—

The Prime Minister: I have referred—

Mr. Churchill: Mr. Churchill rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Prime Minister does not give way, the hon. Member for Stretford must not persist in standing up.

Mr. Churchill: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Prime Minister has attacked me—do I not have the right to reply?

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Stretford must resume his seat.

The Prime Minister: I replied to a seated intervention.
I have referred to the speech that I made at the Labour Party Conference. I want the Leader of the Opposition to understand that this is nothing new. This was said before the election and during the election. I want to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman, when he starts doing his own research again, that this has been said. I said it at the party conference and in a series of public speeches. I shall be very glad to let the right hon. Gentleman have copies of the Press handouts of those speeches.
The right hon. Gentleman is trying to say that this is a new invention of the Government. If he will bear with me, perhaps I may quote what I said at at least 30 or 40 election meetings. I hope that he will bear with me. After all, we have heard his old speeches again today.
I said:
We expect to be judged by the speed with which we have introduced the exercise of public control over private companies through our Industry Act and the other measures set out in the Conference programme. Judged again by our progress in extending public enterprise by taking mineral rights, ship-building and ancillary industries, the ports and aircraft into public ownership and control. North Sea oil and gas to come under national and not private control. The return to public ownership of assets and undertakings transferred by the present Government "—
the then Government—
for private profit, and the creation of the National Enterprise Board, with the structure and functions approved by the Conference.
That is what we said in the election, and the right hon. Gentleman's attack is an attack upon those who voted in the election. It is not an attack upon what we said to them.
I also said at all those meetings—and I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not address himself to this—
We shall apply the same principle as private finance insists upon, that where money goes the control exercised must match the money invested.
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I spelt this out in the debate on the Gracious Speech. He did not pick up that point in that debate, and none of his right hon. Friends picked it up. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry spelt it out in the debate

on the Gracious Speech. There is really nothing new in the situation that we defend today, except the need of the Leader of the Opposition, for his own purposes, to spell it out.
The point is that once the Conservative Party thinks that it is in a safe period for an election, the right hon. Gentleman knows that he is in a very unsafe period. That is why he has suddenly become the most incredible militant. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will recognise at the same time that we—I speak for all on this side of the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh".]—are a party of compassion. I hope that he will recognise that we are not without understanding and sympathy for him in his present predicament.
In three and a half months in opposition we have heard hardly a squeak out of the right hon. Gentleman, and he told the country why. I hope that the 1922 Committee will demonstrate a reasonable degree of tolerance and understanding towards him. It is very important to us that, despite the wishes of Conservative voters, the right hon. Gentleman remains the Conservative Leader. In this respect at least in this debate on that one matter there is great bipartisan interest.

Mr. Churchill: Let the people decide this issue.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has now lost any chance that he had of coming to the Front Bench even for three weeks with that intervention. I was coming to that point later.
In three and a half months we have not had the faintest glimmering of any new policy emerging from the Conservative Opposition in readiness for the coming General Election. It is now clear to the country that the right hon. Gentleman will fight the election on confrontation and the need to get Britain back to a three-day week. He will be fighting it without a policy and without a team. It is the slimmest Front Bench we have seen this century. The only view we get from them every week is another reshuffle and more sackings. We have an Opposition Leader—whom God preserve—and the 1922 Committee, shuffling his Shadows, fiddling about with his phantoms, but never knowing what to do next.
We recognise—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is challenging us to an election and I am dealing with his challenge tonight. I recognise that it must be difficult for him to be committed to fight that election on a policy which implies that the terms that he so meekly accepted on entry into the Market—he referred to it at length today and I reserve the right to reply—should not be regarded as sacrosanct. He refuses to grant the British people the final and binding word of the ballot box. The right hon. Gentleman, avid as he is for an election—we can all see that: cheer up a bit—knows that it is not an attractive election slogan for him to stump the country for three weeks asserting that the gentlemen in Brussels know best.
The right hon. Gentleman also knows that he has prepared no policies for dealing with inflation. No one knows whether his policies will be Selsdon man all over again or the panic outpourings of aid to lame ducks in industry without public accountability. No one sitting behind him knows on which of those two policies he will have to fight in the General Election.
We have seen—which the right hon. Gentleman has to defend—a cutting of the housing programme to the lowest figures in our history.
Today the right hon. Gentleman referred—[Interruption.] There have been enough interruptions. I propose to take a little injury time because of interruptions by hon. Gentlemen opposite.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to confidence in the City, which he blames on speeches made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry. He knows that his financial policies—the free-for-all in the City and the competition and credit control White Paper—created the present crisis in the City with secondary banks and other financial institutions.
Today the right hon. Gentleman referred to Lonrho. He took no action against the evils revealed. He had a Companies Act inquiry, like a previous Tory Government at the time of the Bloom affair—a process lasting nearly

six years—and Government action, but all leading nowhere. He is the man who condemned the unacceptable face of capitalism and did precisely nothing about it. The Lonrho affair would never have come to the notice of the public had it not been for a boardroom row.
What we and the country have a right to ask, after those disclosures, is: how many more cases for concern of a similar kind would have been shown were it not that "old boy" solidarity in the boardroom has prevented any such disclosures?
The right hon. Gentleman has chosen this issue for debate. It is one in which he has finally decided to intervene in our debates. On one thing I agree with him. This debate is vitally important for Britain.
We have put forward our policies, which were fully set out during the election, and the right hon. Gentleman never tried to reply to them. Now he has picked them up. Let him begin to study what he has refused to consider and which never occurred throughout his speech or his premiership, namely, the vital issues of accountability to the nation of those who exercise so much power within the nation, particularly when they are helped with finance to exercise that power. Then, when he has considered them, because we cannot wait indefinitely—

Mr. Heseltine: Mr. Heseltine rose—

The Prime Minister: —let us have his positive policy—

Mr. Heseltine: Mr. Heseltine rose—

The Prime Minister: As I was saying before the hon. Member for Henley got uncomfortable, let the right hon. Gentleman now begin to study these vital issues of accountability to the nation of those who exercise so much power within the nation and are financially helped, and then, because we and the country cannot wait indefinitely, let us have his positive policy, his manifesto, and let the people decide.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 311.

Division No. 47.
AYES
[7.08 p.m.


Abse, Leo
English, Michael
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)


Allaun, Frank
Ennals, David
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)


Archer, Peter (Warley, West)
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson


Armstrong, Ernest
Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
McCartney, Hugh


Ashley, Jack
Evans, John (Newton)
McElhone, Frank


Ashton, Joe
Ewing, Harry (St'ling, F'kirk&amp;G'm'th)
MacFarquhar, Roderick


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Faulds, Andrew
McGuire, Michael


Atkinson, Norman
Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Maclennan, Robert


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
McNamara, Kevin


Barnett, Joel (Heywood &amp; Royton)
Flannery, Martin
Madden, M. O. F.


Bates, Alf
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Magee, Bryan


Baxter, William
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mahon, Simon


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael
Mallalieu, J. P W.


Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)
Ford, Ben
Marks, Kenneth


Bidwell, Sydney
Forrester, John
Marquand, David


Bishop, E. S.
Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Freeson, Reginald
Mayhew, Christopher (G'wh, W'wch, E.)


Booth, Albert
Galpern, Sir Myer
Meacher, Michael


Boothroyd, Miss Betty
Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)
Melish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Mendelson, John


Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
George, Bruce
Mikardo, Ian


Bradley, Tom
Gilbert, Dr. John
Millan, Bruce


Broughton Sir Alfred
Ginsburg, David
Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)


Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)
Graham, Ted
Milne, Edward


Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)


Brown, Ronald (H'kney,S.&amp;Sh'ditch)
Grant, John (Islington, C.)
Molloy, William


Buchan, Norman
Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)
Moonman, Eric


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Springb'rn
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (H' gey, WoodGreen)
Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James (Cardiff, S.E.)
Hamling, William
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)


Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton &amp; Pr'wich)
Hardy, Peter
Moyle, Roland


Campbell, Ian
Harper, Joseph
Murray, Ronald King


Cant, R. B.
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Newens, Stanley (Harlow)


Carmichael, Neil
Hattersley, Roy
Oakes, Gordon


Carter, Ray
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Ogden, Eric


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Heffer, Eric S.
O'Halloran, Michael


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Hooley, Frank
O'Malley, Brian


Clemitson, Ivor
Horam, John
Orbach, Maurice


Cocks, Michael
Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)
Orme, Rt. Hn. Stanley


Cohen, Stanley
Huckfield, Leslie
Ovenden, John


Coleman, Donald
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Owen, Dr. David


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Padley, Walter


Concannon, J. D.
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)
Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)


Conlan, Bernard
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Palmer, Arthur


Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C)
Hunter, Adam
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Cox, Thomas
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'I.EdgeHill)
Parry, Robert


Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)
Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)
Pavitt, Laurie


Crawshaw, Richard
Jackson, Colin
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Cronin, John
Janner, Greville
Pendry, Tom


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Perry, Ernest G.


Cryer, G. R.
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Phipp[...], Dr. Colin


Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S&amp;F'sb'ry)
Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg


Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham,St'fd)
Prescott, John


Dalyell, Tam
John, Brynmor
Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)


Davidson, Arthur
Johnson, James (K'ston uponHull, W.)
Price, William (Rugby)


Davies, Bryan (Enfield, N.)
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Radice, Giles


Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Deakins, Eric
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
Judd, Frank
Robertson, John (Paisley)


de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Kaufman, Gerald
Roderick, Caerwyn E.


Delargy, Hugh
Kelley, Richard
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Kerr, Russell
Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)


Dempsey, James
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Rooker, J. W.


Doig, Peter
Kinnock, Neil
Roper, John


Dormand, J. D.
Lambie, David
Rose, Paul B.


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lamborn, Harry
Rowlands, Edward


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lamond, James
Sandelson, Neville


Du[...]nett, Jack
Latham, Arthur(CityofW'minsterP'ton)
Sedgemore, Bryan


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Lawson, George (Motherwell&amp;Wishaw)
Selby, Harry


Eadie, Alex
Leadbitter, Ted
Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)


Edelman, Maurice
Lee, John
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Edge, Geoff
Lewis, Arthur (Newham, N.)
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney&amp;P'plar)


Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)
Lewis Ron (Carlisle)
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne, C.)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
Lipton, Marcus
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hamp'n, N.E.)


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
Loughlin, Charles
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)




Silkin, Rt.Hn.S.C.(S'hwark, Dulwich)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Whitlock, William


Sillars, James
Thorne, Stan (Preston, S.)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Silverman, Julius
Tierney, Sydney
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Skinner, Dennis
Tinn, James
Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)


Small, William
Tomlinson, John
Williams, Rt.Hn. Shirley(H'f'd&amp;St'ge)


Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)
Tomney, Frank
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Snape, Peter
Torney, Tom
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Spearing, Nigel
Tuck, Raphael
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Spriggs, Leslie
Urwin, T. W.
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)


Stallard, A. W.
Varley, Eric G.
Wise, Mrs. Audrey


Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Fulh'm)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)
Woodall, Alec


Stoddart, David (Swindon)
Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)
Woof, Robert


Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Stott, Roger
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
Young, David (Bolton, E.)


Strang, Gavin
Watkins, David



Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Weitzman, David
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Wellbeloved, James
Mr. James A. Dunn and


Swain, Thomas
White, James
Mr. John Golding.


Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)
Whitehead, Phillip





NOES


Adley, Robert
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid,Maj. -Gen. James
Hayhoe, Barney


Aitken, Jonathan
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Henderson, Barry (Dunbartonshire, E.)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Dixon, Piers
Heseltine, Michael


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
Higgins, Terence


Ancram, M.
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Hill, James A.


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Holland, Philip


Atkins, Rt.Hn.Humphrey(Spelthorne)
Drayson, Burnaby
Hordern, Peter


Awdry, Daniel
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Howe, Rt.Hn. Sir Geoffrey(Surrey, E.)


Baker, Kenneth
Dunlop, John
Howell, David (Guildford)


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Durant, Tony
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)


Banks, Robert
Dykes, Hugh
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Hunt, John


Beith, A. J.
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Hurd, Douglas


Bell, Ronald
Elliott, Sir William
Hutchison, Michael Clark


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Emery, Peter
Iremonger, T. L.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Fareham)
Ewing, Mrs. Winifred (Moray&amp; Nairn)
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Benyon, W.
Eyre, Reginald
James, David


Berry, Hon. Anthony
Fairgrieve, Russell
Jenkin, Rt.Hn.P. (R'dgeW'std&amp;W'fd)


Biffen, John
Farr, John
Jessel, Toby


Biggs-Davison, John
Fell, Anthony
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)


Blaker, Peter
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.)
Fidler, Michael
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)


Body, Richard
Finsberg, Geoffrey
Jopling, Michael


Boscawen, Hon. Robert
Fisher, Sir Nigel
Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith


Bowden, Andrew (Brighton, Kemptown)
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)
Kaberry, Sir Donald


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent, [...] )
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine


Bradford, Rev. R.
Fookes, Miss Janet
Kershaw, Anthony


Braine, Sir Bernard
Fowler, Norman (Sutton Coldfield)
Kilfedder, James A.


Bray, Ronald
Fox, Marcus
Kimball, Marcus


Brewis, John
Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford&amp;Stone)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)


Brittan, Leon
Freud, Clement
King, Tom (Bridgwater)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Fry, Peter
Kirk, Peter


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.
Kitson, Sir Timothy


Bruce Gardyne, J.
Gardiner, George (Reigate&amp;Banstead)
Knight, Mrs. Jill


Bryan, Sir Paul
Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)
Knox, David


Buchanan-Smith, Alick
Gibson-Watt, Rt. Hn. David
Lamont, Norman


Buck, Antony
Gilmour, Rt.Hn.Ian(Ch'sh'&amp;Amsh'm)
Lane, David


Budgen, Nick
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John


Bulmer, Esmond
Glyn, Dr. Alan
Latham, Michael (Melton)


Burden, F. A.
Goodhart, Philip
Lawrence, Ivan


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Goodhew, Victor
Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)


Carlisle, Mark
Goodlad, A.
Le Marchant, Spencer


Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Gorst, John
Lester, Jim (Beeston)


Chalker, Mrs. Lynda
Gow, I. R. E. (Eastbourne)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rtland &amp; Stmford)


Channon, Paul
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)


Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Loveridge, John


Churchill, W. S.
Grieve, Percy
Luce, Richard


Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
MacArthur, Ian


Clark, William (Croydon, S.)
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
MacCormack, Iain


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Grist, Ian
Macfarlane, Neil


Cockcroft, John
Grylls, Michael
MacGregor, John


Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)
Gurden, Harold
McLaren, Martin


Cope, John
Hall, Sir John
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)


Cordle, John
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)


Cormack, Patrick
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
McNair-Wilson. Patrick (New Forest)


Corrie, John
Hampson, Dr. Keith
Madel, David


Costain, A. P.
Hannam, John
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)


Craig. Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, W.)
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Marten, Neil


Critchley, Julian
Harvie Anderson, Rt. Hn. Miss
Mather, Carol


Crouch, David
Hastings, Stephen
Maude, Angus


Crowder, F. P.
Havers, Sir Michael
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald







Mawby, Ray
Redmond, Robert
Stradling Thomas, J.


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Tapsell, Peter


Mayhew, Patrick (RoyalT'bridgeWells)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Taverne, Dick


Meyer, Sir Anthony
Reid, George
Taylor, Edward M. (Gl'gow, C'cart)


Miller, Hal (B'grove &amp; R'ditch)
Renton, Rt. Hn. SirDavid (H't gd'n[...] re)
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Mills, Peter
Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)
Tebbit, Norman


Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Temple-Morris, Peter


Moate, Roger
Ridsdale. Julian
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Money, Ernle
Rifkind, Malcolm
Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net,H'dn S.)


Monro, Hector
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Moore, J. E. M. (Croydon, C.)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)
Townsend, C. D.


More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Trotter, Neville


Morgan, Geraint
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Tyler, Paul


Morris, Michael (Northampton, S.)
Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)
Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.E.)
Viggers, Peter


Mudd, David
Royle, Sir Anthony
Waddington, David


Neave, Airey
Sainsbury, Tim
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Neubert, Michael
St. John-Stevas, Norman
Wakeham, John


Newton, Tony (Braintree)
Scott-Hopkins, James
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Normanton, Tom
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Nott, John
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Wall, Patrick


Onslow, Cranley
Shelton, Wiliam (L'mb'th, Streath'm)
Walters, Dennis


Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Shersby, Michael
Warren, Kenneth


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Silvester, Fred
Watt, Hamish


Osborn, John
Sims, Roger
Weatherill, Bernard


Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Sinclair, Sir George
Wells, John 



Skeet, T. H. H.
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
Wiggin, Jerry


Paisley, Rev. Ian
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee, E.)


Pardoe, John
Spence, John
Winstanley, Dr. Michael


Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire, S.)
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)
Winterton, Nicholas


Pattie, Geoffrey
Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire, S.)
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Percival, Ian
Sproat, Iain
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Stainton, Keith
Worsley, Sir Marcus


Pink, R. Bonner
Stanbrook, Ivor
Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)


Price, David (Eastleigh)
Stanley, John
Younger, Hn George


Prior, Rt. Hn. James
Steel, David



Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Steen, Anthony (L'pool, Wavertree)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Quennell, Miss J. M.
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)
Mr. Walter Clegg and


Raison, Timothy
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Mr. Paul Hawkins.


Rathbone, Tim
Stodart, Rt. Hn. A. (Edinburgh, W.)



Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Stokes. John

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 311, Noes 290.

Division No. 48]
AYES
[7.21 p.m


Adley, Robert
Bryan, Sir Paul
Drayson, Burnaby


Aitken, Jonathan
Buchanan-Smith, Alick
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Buck, Antony
Dunlop, John


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Budgen, Nick
Durant, Tony


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Bulmer, Esmond
Dykes, Hugh


Ancram, M.
Burden, F. A.
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)


Atkins, Rt.Hn.Humphrey (Spelthorne)
Carlisle, Mark
Elliott, Sir William


Awdry, Daniel
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Emery, Peter


Baker, Kenneth
Chalker. Mrs. Lynda
Ewing, Mrs.Winifred (Moray&amp;Nairn)


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Channon, Paul
Eyre, Reginald


Banks, Robert
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Fairgrieve, Russell


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Churchill, W. S.
Farr, John


Beith, A. J.
Clark, A. K. M. (Plymouth, Sutton)
Fell, Anthony


Bell, Ronald
Clark, William (Croydon, S.)
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torbay)
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Fidler, Michael


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Fareham)
Cockcroft, John
Finsberg, Geoffrey


Benyon, W.
Cooke, Robert (Bristol, W.)
Fisher, Sir Nigel


Berry, Hon. Anthony
Cope, John
Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)


Biffen, John
Cordle, John
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles


Biggs-Davison, John
Cormack, Patrick
Fookes, Miss Janet


Blaker, Peter
Corrie, John
Fowler, Norman (Sutton Coldfield)


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.)
Costain, A. P.
Fox, Marcus


Body, Richard
Craig, Rt. Hn. William (Belfast, E.)
Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh (St'fford&amp;Stone)


Boscawen, Hon. Robert
Critchley, Julian
Freud, Clement


Bowden, Andrew (Brighton, Kemptown)
Crouch, David
Fry, Peter


Boyson, Dr. Rhodes (Brent, N.)
Crowder, F. P.
Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.


Bradford, Rev. R.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. James
Gardiner, George (Reigate&amp;Banstead)


Bray, Ronald
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Gardner, Edward (S. Fylde)


Brewis, John
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Gibson-Watt, Rt. Hn. David


Brittan, Leon
Dixon, Piers
Gilmour, Rt.Hn.Ian (Ch'sh'&amp;Amsh m)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Glyn, Dr. Alan


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec
Goodhart, Philip




Goodhew, Victor
Mactarlane, Neil
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Goodlad, A.
MacGregor, John
Rost, Peter (Derbyshire, S.E.)


Gorst, John
McLaren, Martin
Royle, Sir Anthony


Gow, I. R. E. (Eastbourne)
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. M. (Farnham)
Sainsbury, Tim


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
McNair-Wilson, Michael (Newbury)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Scott-Hopkins, James


Grieve, Percy
Madel, David
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Marshall, Michael (Arundel)
Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Marten, Neil
Shelton, Wiliam (L'mb'th,Streath'm)


Grist, Ian
Mather, Carol
Shersby, Michael


Grylls, Michael
Maude, Angus
Silvester, Fred


Gurden, Harold
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Sims, Roger


Hall, Sir John
Mawby, Ray
Sinclair, Sir George


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Skeet, T. H. H.


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mayhew, Patrick (RoyalT'bridgeWells)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Hampson, Dr. Keith
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Smith, Dudley (W'wick&amp;L'm'ngton)


Hannam, John
Miller, Hal (B'grove &amp; R'ditch)
Spence, John


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mills, Peter
Spicer, Jim (Dorset, W.)


Harvie Anderson, Rt. Hn. Miss
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Spicer, Michael (Worcestershire, S.)


Hastings, Stephen
Moate, Roger
Sproat, Iain


Havers, Sir Michael
Money, Ernle
Stainton, Keith


Hayhoe, Barney
Monro, Hector
Stanbrook, Ivor


Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward
Moore, J. E. M. (Croydon, C.)
Stanley, John


Henderson, Barry (Dunbartonshire, E.)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Steel, David


Heseltine, Michael
Morgan, Geraint
Steen, Anthony (L'pool, Wavertree)


Higgins, Terence
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Hill, James A.
Morris, Michael (Northampton, S.)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Holland, Philip
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Stodart, Rt. Hn. A. (Edinburgh, W.)


Hordern, Peter
Morrison, Peter (City of Chester)
Stokes, John


Howe, Rt.Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Surrey, E.)
Mudd, David
Stradling Thomas, J.


Howell, David (Guildford)
Neave, Airey
Tapsell, Peter


Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)
Neubert, Michael
Taverne, Dick


Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Newton, Tony (Braintree)
Taylor, Edward M, (Gl'gow, C'cart)


Hunt, John
Normanton, Tom
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)


Hurd, Douglas
Nott, John
Tebbit, Norman


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Onslow, Cranley
Temple-Morris, Peter


Iremonger, T. L.
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Thomas, Rt. Hn. P. (B'net,H'dn S.)


James, David
Osborn, John
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Jenkin, Rt.Hn.P. (R'dgeW'std&amp;W'fd)
Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Townsend, C. D.


Jessel, Toby
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Trotter, Neville


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Paisley, Rev. Ian
Tugendhat, Christopher


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Pardoe, John
Tyler, Paul


Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Parkinson, Cecil (Hertfordshire, S.)
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Jopling, Michael
Pattie, Geoffrey
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Percival, Ian
Viggers, Peter


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Waddington, David


Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Pink, R. Bonner
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Kershaw, Anthony
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Wakeham, John


Kilfedder, James A.
Prior, Rt. Hn. James
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Kimball, Marcus
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Wall, Patrick


King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Raison, Timothy
Walters, Dennis


Kirk, Peter
Rathbone, Tim
Warren, Kenneth


Kitson, Sir Timothy
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Watt, Hamish


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Redmond, Robert
Weatherill, Bernard


Knox, David
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)
Wells, John


Lamont, Norman
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Lane, David
Reid, George
Wiggin, Jerry


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Renton, Rt.Hn.SirDavid(H't'gd'ns re)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee, E.)


Latham, Michael (Melton)
Renton, R. T. (Mid-Sussex)
Winstanley, Dr. Michael


Lawrence, Ivan
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Winterton, Nicholas


Lawson, Nigel (Blaby)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Le Marchant, Spencer
Ridsdale, Julian
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Rifkind, Malcolm
Worsley Sir Marcus


Lewis, Kenneth (Rtland &amp; Stmford)
Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Young, Sir George (Ealing, Acton)


Lloyd, Ian (Havant &amp; Waterloo)
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.-W.)
Younger, Hn. George


Loveridge, John
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Luce, Richard
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Mr. Walter Clegg and


MacArthur, Ian
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)
Mr. Paul Hawkins.


MacCormack, Iain
Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)





NOES


Abse, Leo
Barnett, Joel (Heywood &amp; Royton)
Boothroyd, Miss Betty


Allaun, Frank
Bates, Alf
Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur


Archer, Peter (Warley, West)
Baxter, William
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)


Armstrong, Ernest
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Bradley, Tom


Ashley, Jack
Bennett, Andrew F. (Stockport, N.)
Broughton Sir Alfred


Ashton, Joe
Bidwell, Sydney
Brown, Bob (Newcastle upon Tyne, W.)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Bishop, E. S.
Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)


Atkinson, Norman
Blenkinsop, Arthur
Brown, Ronald (H'kney,S.&amp;Sh'ditch)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Buchan, Norman


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Booth, Albert
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow,Springb'rn







Butler, Mrs.Joyce (H'gey, WoodGreen)
Hatton, Frank
Orme, Rt. Hn. Stanley


Callaghan, Rt.Hn.James(Cardiff, S.E.)
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Ovenden, John


Callaghan, Jim (M'dd'ton &amp; Pr'wich)
Heffer, Eric S.
Owen, Dr. David


Campbell, Ian
Hooley, Frank
Padley, Walter


Cant, R. B.
Horam, John
Palmer, Arthur


Carmichael, Neil
Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)
Park, George (Coventry, N.E.)


Carter, Ray
Huckfield, Leslie
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Parry, Robert


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Pavitt, Laurie


Clemitson, Ivor
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Cocks, Michael
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Pendry, Tom


Cohen. Stanley
Hunter, Adam
Perry, Ernest G.


Coleman, Donald
Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir A. (L'p'I.EdgeHill)
Phipps, Dr. Colin


Colquhoun, Mrs. M. N.
Irving, Rt. Hn. Sydney (Dartford)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg


Concannon, J. D.
Jackson, Colin
Prescott, John


Conlan, Bernard
Janner, Greville
Price, Christopher (Lewisham, W.)


Cook, Robert F. (Edinburgh, C.)
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Price, William (Rugby)


Cox, Thomas
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Radice, Giles


Craigen, J. M. (G'gow, Maryhill)
Jenkins, Hugh (W'worth, Putney)
Rees, Rt. Hn. Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Crawshaw, Richard
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (B'ham, St'fd)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Cronin, John
John, Brynmor
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Johnson, James (K'ston uponHull, W.)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Cryer, G. R.
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Robertson. John (Paisley)


Cunningham, G.(Isl'ngt'n, S&amp;F'sb'ry)
Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)
Roderick, Caerwyn E.


Cunningham, Dr. John A.(Whiteh'v'n)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Dalyell, Tam
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Rodgers, William (Teesside, St'ckton)


Davidson, Arthur
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Rooker J. W.


Davies, Bryan (Enfield,[...].)
Judd, Frank
Roper, John


Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Kaufman, Gerald
Rose, Paul B.


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kelley, Richard
Rowlands, Edward


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Kerr, Russell
Sandelson, Neville


Deakins, Eric
Kilroy-Silk. Robert
Sedgemore, Bryan


Dean, Joseph (Leeds, W.)
Kinnock, Neil
Selby, Harry


de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey
Lambie, David
Shaw, Arnold (Redbridge, Ilford, S.)


De'a[...], Hugh
Lamborn, Harry
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
Lamond, James
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (S'pney&amp;P'plar)


Dempsey, James
Latham, Arthur(CityofW'minsterP'ton)
Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'ctle-u-Tyne)


Doig, Peter
Lawson, George (Motherwell&amp;Wishaw)
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hamp'n, N.E.)


Dormand, J. D.
Leadbitter, Ted
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (L'sham, D'ford)


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Lee, John
Silkin, Rt.Hn.S.C. (S'hwark, Dulwich)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lewis, Arthur (Newham, N.)
Sillars, James


Dunnett, Jack
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Silverman, Julius


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth
Lipton, Marcus
Skinner, Dennis


Eadie, Alex
Loughlin, Charles
Small, William


Edelman, Maurice
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Edge, Geoff
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, W.)
Snape, Peter


Edwards, Robert (W'hampton, S.E.)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Spearing, Nigel


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scunthorpe)
McCartney, Hugh
Spriggs, Leslie


Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)
McElhone, Frank
Stallard, A. W.


English, Michael
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Stewart, Rt. Hn. M. (H'sth, Fulh'm)


Ennals, David
McGuire, Michael
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Maclennan, Robert
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow. C.)
Stott, Roger


Evans, John (Newton)
McNamara, Kevin
Strang, Gavin


Ewing, Harry (St'ling,F'kirk&amp;G'm'th)
Madden, M. O. F.
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Faulds, Andrew
Magee, Bryan
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.
Mahon, Simon
Swain, Thomas


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Mallalieu, J. P W
Thomas, D. E. (Merioneth)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast, W.)
Marks, Kenneth
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Flannery, Martin
Marquand, David
Thorne, Stan (Preston, S.)


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)
Tierney, Sydney


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Tinn, James


Foot, Rt. Hn. Michael
Mayhew, Christopher G'wh.W'wch.E.)
Tomlinson, John


Ford, Ben
Meacher, Michael
Tomney, Frank


Forrester, John
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Torney, Tom


Fowler, Gerry (The Wrekin)
Mendelson, John
Tuck, Raphael


Fraser, John (Lambeth, Norwood)
Mikardo, Ian
Urwin, T. W.


Freeson, Reginald
Millan, Bruce
Varley, Eric G.


Galpern, Sir Myer
Miller, Dr. M. S. (E. Kilbride)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Garrett, John (Norwich, S.)
Milne, Edward
Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, Ladywood)


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


George, Bruce
Molloy, William
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Gilbert, Dr. John
Moonman, Eric
Watkins, David


Ginsburg, David
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Weitzman, David


Graham, Ted
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Wellbeloved, James


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
White, James


Grant, John (Islington, C.)
Moyle, Roland
Whitehead, Phillip


Griffiths, Eddie (Sheffield, Brightside)
Murray, Ronald King
Whitlock, William


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Newens, Stanley (Harlow)
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Hamilton, William (Fife, C.)
Oakes, Gordon
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Hamling, William
Ogden, Eric
Williams, Alan Lee (Hvrng, Hchurch)


Hardy, Peter
O'Halloran, Michael
Williams, Rt.Hn. Shirley(H'f'd&amp;St'ge)


Harper, Joseph
O'Malley, Brian
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Orbach, Maurice
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Hattersley, Roy

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)







Wilson, William (Coventry, S.E.)
Wool Robert
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Wise, Mrs. Audrey
Wrigglesworth, Ian
Mr. James A. Dunn and


Woodail, Alec
Young, David (Bolton, E.)
Mr. John Golding.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House regrets the Government's damaging industrial policies based on a massive extension of nationalisation and control of individual companies.

The Prime Minister: The Prime Minister rose—

Mr. Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask the Prime Minister to state that he will acknowledge the will of the House which has been twice demonstrated tonight in the Lobbies and announce that his administration will abandon the thoroughly damaging programme of nationalisation and State control which he has so singularly failed to justify tonight in what must have been the most inadequate and appalling speech ever made from a Front Bench by any Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The Government will, of course, consider the implications of these two important votes. We shall also consider the implications of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has taken a vital part of the manifesto on which we were elected, submitted it to a vote and collected his hon. Friends in the Lobby. That raises important political and constitutional implications following the speech of the right hon. Gentleman seeking to tell Europe what a minority Government could and could not do in negotiations with Europe, and following four defeats in Standing Committee. The right hon. Gentleman can be fully assured that we shall consider all the implications following what he has succeeded in doing today, and that in due course our decision will be made known.

Orders of the Day — NIGHT STORAGE HEATING

Mr. Speaker: Before I call on the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), I must inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I beg to move:
That this House, recalling the encouragement given to consumers by the electricity boards

to install night storage heating, notes the widespread public dismay at the disproportionate 70 per cent. increase in off-peak charges; deplores the failure of the Government to give any adequate justification for such an increase; and calls for any increase that may be required to be phased so as to avoid hardship to pensioners, the disabled and other hard-pressed householders.
There can be few actions by any State-owned industry in recent years which has aroused as much public resentment as the decision to raise the price of off-peak electricity by 70 per cent., and in some cases by even more, at one fell swoop. My hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) raised the matter in an Adjournment debate on 24th May. That debate, short as it was, showed clearly the deep concern that is felt on this issue on both sides of the House. The reaction that many of us have had since then from members of the public has greatly emphasised that concern. We return to the subject tonight for a full-scale debate.
The British people are for the most part reasonable and understanding. The huge rise in world oil prices is well understood by them. The need for sharp rises in coal prices, although a little more controversial, is recognised by most. The increased prices of petrol, paraffin and ordinary electricity have been accepted by the people with little real grumbling, despite the fact that the increased price of paraffin, for example, gave rise to some hardship.
In contrast to that mood of what I might describe as long-suffering acquiescence, the public reaction to the increased charges for off-peak electricity has been an explosion of real anger. It was clear from Question Time on Monday that the blast of that explosion has been felt not merely on the benches behind me but on both sides of the House.
There are several reasons for this resentment, but perhaps the one that is most often expressed is that people feel they have been "conned". For years, the electricity industry has based its advertising campaign on what it called "half-price electricity". Now it is no longer to be half price. Indeed, off-peak electricity will cost significantly more than half-price.
Again, many people were misled by the Chancellor's statement on Budget day, when he said that the price increases he had announced would mean
increases to domestic consumers averaging about 30 per cent. on bills reaching most of them from the beginning of August "[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1974; Vol. 871, c. 301].
People simply did not realise until weeks later that the increase of 0·3p per unit across the board for standard and off-peak charges meant that bills were likely to increase within a range of between 10 per cent. and perhaps as high as 55 per cent.
Then again, many people have been very irritated by the case that has been put—notably by the Under-Secretary of State—that the small user was going to be hit much less hard than the large user. The truth is that the size of increase of any individual's bill depends not so much upon whether he is a large or small user, but on the ratio of off-peak to on-peak electricity that he consumes. A small user most of whose electricity is used off-peak will find his bill rising by the higher end of the range of increases.
All this has served to confuse, irritate and infuriate the 2 million consumers of off-peak electricity. Furthermore, they feel that, having been misled in the past, they have now been singled out to bear a disproportionate share of the burden for the future. When one bears in mind what was said in The Times on 15th June, that
night storage heaters have, in many cases, been fitted by families on a tight budget or by old people because of the low initial installation cost,
one can see that a massive increase of the size many of these people now face will fall with great harshness on their domestic budget. Many others live in flats where off-peak heating is centrally provided, and they have no option. All of them have expended sums of greater or lesser amount on installing the system, only to find now that, from being one of the cheapest forms of central heating, it is now one of the most expensive.
These are the reasons why these 2 million families are angry, and they have good reason to be. They are looking to this House for redress, and I hope to persuade the Government that their policy in relation to off-peak charges is

misguided and must be modified. Unless we get a firm undertaking of a significant easing of these charges by phasing or some other means, we intend to press the matter to a Division.
But before I come to examine the details of the argument, I should make three preliminary points because I want them to be clearly understood. My complaint is against Ministers and not against the electricity supply industry as such. The industry is entitled to go for the maximum increase in prices and charges that it thinks it is likely to be allowed by the Government.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Eric Varley): Earlier, the right hon. Gentleman said that the public had been misled by the advertising of the electricity supply industry. He said they had been "conned". He is now saying that all this is the responsibility of Ministers and that he does not blame the electricity supply industry. How does he reconcile these two statements?

Mr. Jenkin: It is perfectly easy to reconcile them. It is Ministers who, under the powers they have over the boards, can say "Yea" or "Nay" to a proposal for an increase. The advertisements were years ago. I am now talking about the charges. It is because of this very steep increase in prices that the advertisements are now thought to have been so unfair by the consumers.

Mr. David Stoddart: Mr. David Stoddart (Swindon) rose—

Mr. Jenkin: The boards are perfectly entitled to put, as it were, at the top of their priority their own solvency. They will argue, with a great deal of effect, that that is their statutory duty. But Ministers have a wider responsibility and a wider power. They have to have regard to the need to avoid inflation and to seek to control the rise in prices and the impact on the retail price index.

Mr. Stoddart: Mr. Stoddart rose—

Mr. Jenkin: No. I must pursue my argument.

Mr. Stoddart: Mr. Stoddart rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) does not wish to give way, he must not be pressed beyond a certain point.

Mr. Jenkin: Perhaps the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Stoddart) will catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
As I was saying, in pursuing this policy Ministers have to have regard to the need to avoid unnecessarily harsh increases for particular groups of the population. They should see, furthermore, that if unpalatable measures have to be taken they should be taken in a manner seen to be fair and therefore acceptable to the people affected. It is the duty of Ministers to see that proper explanations are given for any decisions that are taken. I am bound to say, more in sorrow than in anger, that I believe the Ministers in the Department of Energy have failed dismally on all counts. Our charges are, therefore, directed at them.
The second point I want to make is that since the election, and, indeed, more important, since the Budget, I have uttered not one word of criticism of the decisions taken to increase energy prices because, in general, I believe that what has been done was inevitable and not a matter of complaint; but on the question of off-peak prices I believe the decisions have gone sadly awry.
Thirdly, I do not object in principle to some form of fuel adjustment clause for the domestic consumer. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the fact that I indicated that this is acceptable in principle to the Government. At a time of rapid change in fuel prices, one way of ensuring that such changes are reflected in charges to the consumers without too long a time lag is by some form of fuel adjustment clause. I said so on 13th March. But I made it clear that this was acceptance in principle. The words I used then did not mean, and do not now mean, that the Conservative Government were committed to the precise details of how that might be carried into effect, still less to the precise details of what the Government have done, and even less that this is the only way of applying the fuel adjustment clause. On the contrary, we had not accented the Electricity Council's proposal for a price increase, and I can tell the House that we would not have done so in relation to off-peak charges.
For reasons that I will explain, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not be as disingenuous as the Under-Secretary of State was in replying to the earlier

debate. I understand that the Under-Secretary of State is not to be allowed to reply to this debate, for reasons that we can all appreciate. The Under-Secretary of State seemed to be arguing that my acceptance of a fuel adjustment clause in principle somehow meant that we were committed to accepting all the details of what the Government have done. That is not so, and had I attempted to pretend that it was I would have been guilty of misleading the House.
The case made in support of what has been done is deceptively simple. It is that the industry's fuel costs have about doubled, adding 0·3p to the cost of producing a unit of electricity; that the cost of fuel to produce off-peak electricity has gone up just as much as for electricity on the standard tariff. Therefore, 0·3p per unit increase across the board is the right response.
My reaction to this "too-simple-by-half" reasoning comes under two heads. I shall deal with them in turn.
First, the argument takes no account of the benefit to the electricity supply industry from spreading the load. I have always understood that a main reason, perhaps even the main reason, why the boards went into the central heating off-peak market, was to reduce the growth of on-peak power by persuading customers to switch to off-peak consumption.
The boards did that because it had distinct advantages for the industry. It reduced the need for new plant to meet the peak load and so delayed the investment which would otherwise have been necessary, saving on capital expenditure. Secondly, it brought in a return which would not otherwise have been derived from electricity generated during off-peak periods from base load plants such as nuclear plants and other power stations which are cheaper to run continuously than to switch off in off-peak periods when consumption falls substantially. If that is right—I do not believe that it is seriously challenged—what will be the effect on this of a significant narrowing of the margin of advantage for off-peak electricity? Of course, one cannot be sure, but there must be more than a slight risk of pushing people back from the off-peak tariff into peak electricity, and this is a message which I am sure I am not alone in hearing from constituents and others, or from reading the newspapers.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: The right hon. Gentleman must not overlook the fact that when an increase in costs is a fuel increase—and this is mainly a fuel increase—it falls equally on peak units as well as off-peak units. There is no difference.

Mr. Jenkin: I accept that that is an argument which Ministers have been advancing in letters to hon. Members. However, it, ignores the effect of a narrowing of the differential and as The Sunday Times put it, perhaps with rather stark overstatement that has more than a grain of truth in it,
it effectively knocks electricity out of the central heating market at a stroke".
Many people have worked out their own figures and have decided that it will no longer pay them to use off-peak electricity for long periods during the night if they have the alternative of using on-peak electricity for much shorter periods during the day. The Rev. Dr. Kenneth Slack, a well-known churchman, said in a letter to The Times
The wise citizen will invest in thermostatically controlled oil-filled heaters which will turn themselves on just before he rises and use power at the period of heaviest demand".
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) had a letter from a constituent which said:
If the cost of off-peak electricity is increased as proposed, I, and probably thousands of other people, will discontinue the use of this form of heating.
There are many other examples one could quote.
I put this to the Deputy Chairman of the Electricity Council and he said that there was no evidence. I accept that there is no evidence because this is the first time there has been a significant narrowing of the margin and therefore one asks whether the industry is right to risk it. Are Ministers right to allow it to risk it, because the effect of a substantial addition to peak demand could be very grave.
The second argument is perhaps more technical. An increase of 0·3p across the board takes no account of the undoubted fact that the less generating plant that is being used, the higher the overall thermal efficiency of the system—the complicated system of order of merit which the CEGB and other boards use ensures that this efficiency is obtained. The council

agrees with this but, somewhat to my astonishment, it says that the differential is only marginal—perhaps a 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. difference. That is astonishing. The nuclear generators, which now represent 10 per cent. of the total generating capacity, are 40 per cent. cheaper to run, on average, than fossil fuel stations. This is part of the base load, and that must have a marked effect on the cost of off-peak electricity. The same is to some extent true with the modern 500–600 megawatt generating sets which have significantly higher thermal efficiences than the older stations.
On 11th April the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) asked the Under-Secretary about the range of efficiencies of power stations and was given an average figure for stations built in the last 12 years. For coal-fired stations the range efficiency of cost per kilowatt was 0·40p to 1·69p. On these figures, it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that the margin of thermal efficiency is as narrow as has been said. If it is that narrow does it not mean that the thermal efficiencies of the base load power stations are very much lower than they should be as a whole, perhaps as a result of operational faults or for other reasons, so much so that they virtually wipe out the cost saving they should be providing?
Taking the two arguments about the differences of thermal efficiency and the risks of increasing the peak load, I do not believe the Government should have accepted uncritically as they have the Electricity Council's case for an across-the-board parallel increase in charges. Something less than that for off-peak would have been more appropriate and it would have reduced the risk of adding to the peak load with all the problems that that would entail.
But the case does not stop there, because we must consider the social impact. Even if the Electricity Council had made out its case, so much so that the Government felt obliged to accept it on technical grounds, should the Minister have accepted it having regard both to the background of advertising and the immediate social effect? I am bound to say that the answer must be. "No". Having regard to the tone and content of advertising over the years, a 70 per cent. increase at one go is much too steep to expect consumers to bear, and


to force this on people often of limited means deals this class of consumer a much heavier blow than they should have to bear. At the very least this increase could have been phased and it must be phased. A full 70 per cent. increase will bring in, I am told, about £80 million. To defer part of the increase would not, therefore, cost a great deal, and certainly the amount is tiny beside the £700 million-odd that the Government are handing out in indiscriminate food subsidies. If they were to do this, it would go some way to temper the feelings of a large number of customers who are already hard pressed and for whom this increase will provide real hardship to the extent that they will not be able to afford to use this system at all.
I turn to the Government amendment. Most of it is what I would describe as the usual prefatory guff. The meat is in the last two lines. They ask the House to welcome
the Government's decision to review the policy for energy prices in the light of their impact on household expenditure".
The remarkable thing about this is that the Government have announced no decision. I assume that the decision has been taken, unless perhaps we are asked to take into account the ructions at the end of last week. I am sorry that the Patronage Secretary has left the Chamber. Perhaps the ructions at the end of last week were to be taken as some form of announcement.
We were told that last Thursday hon. Members on the Government bench rebelled. The rebellion was led by the Patronage Secretary. But by Friday all was well again. The Guardian quoted the Patronage Secretary as saying,
I am certain that when the vote is taken the Government will have the 100 per cent. support of Labour MPs.
We will see about that. It seems a rather odd way of announcing a decision to carry out a review of energy prices.
What does the contention of the Secretary of State, on its face value, amount to? We want to hear. I must warn him that unless it includes a clear undertaking to mitigate the increase in peak charges by phasing, or by some other form of alleviation, the Opposition, at least, will not be satisfied. Again I quote the right hon. Gentleman as quoted in the Press: he said that the increases

represent cheating. In face of that charge, an undertaking to review the Government's policy will not suffice.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): The hon. Gentleman must not believe all he reads in the Press.

Mr. Jenkin: I have made many similar comments. I shall take note of what the right hon. Gentleman says.
I doubt if a woolly review of the sort which the right hon. Gentleman has indicated in his amendment will satisfy hon. Members in all parts of the House, but that is for them to decide.
Of one thing I am certain. When an issue arises affecting one of our great State industries which arouses such intense resentment as this one has, it is the duty of the House of Commons to give expression to that resentment. It is the duty of Government to give redress. If they do not, I must invite right hon. and hon. Members to express their displeasure in the Division Lobbies.

8.3 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Eric Varley): I beg to move, to leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'whilst deploring the policies of the previous Government which led to the unprecedented deficit of the electricity boards, noting the announcement of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17th December 1973 that it was anomalous to subsidise electricity prices at a mounting rate, regretting that the previous Government did not inform the country of the full size of the prospective deficit, and noting further that the previous Government had accepted the principle of the fuel adjustment clauses which have led directly to increased charges for night storage heaters, acknowledges the action taken by the Government to help those in need through the largest ever increases in pensions and other benefits, and welcomes the Government's decision to review the policy for energy prices in the light of their impact on household expenditure'.
This is a short debate—but it is two debates. On the one hand, my hon. Friends—and perhaps hon. Members on the Liberal benches—will voice justifiable and honest concern at the impact on some of their less-well-off constituents of the increase in off-peak electricity charges. We shall listen to them with respect, for they are not open to any charge of double standards.
On the other hand, we shall watch the official Opposition—we have had the first unseemly instalment from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin)—seeking to squeeze the last drop of cheap political capital out of a price increase for which they were responsible—a price increase which they knew was coming when they were in government; a price formula which they knew was coming six months ago; a price increase which went to the Price Commission when they were in government; a price increase which they deliberately suppressed for electoral purposes. It was their guilty secret, and it surfaced in the official handout issued by the Electricity Council three weeks after they left office.
That is the give away. Every hon. Member in this House knows how long it takes to prepare a tariff adjustment of this nature. I can tell the House that this proposal was one of the first pieces of paper I found on my desk on the very first day I walked into the Department of Energy. It had been ready for ages—and the right hon. Gentleman knows it. What is more, in a rare moment of frankness, he blurted it out in this House.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is not falling into the elementary trap of confusing a proposal put to the Government by the Electricity Council with a decision taken by the Government. I have already said that the previous Government had taken no decision and that we would not have accepted this increase.

Mr. Varley: I find that incredible. The Conservatives never gave us open government when they were in office as they promised, but in a brief blissful moment of open opposition this is what the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford said in the House on 13th March:
The electricity boards are pressing for fuel adjustment clauses for domestic tariffs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th March 1974; Vol. 870, c. 327.]
How did he know about it? He knew about it because the Electricity Council cleared with the last Government a submission to the Price Commission on this very matter. We even know the date; it was last December. The right hon. Gentleman was, of course, a Treasury

Minister at that time and will have known all about it. What is more, he will fully have approved of it. He was in no position to do otherwise.
His Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber) said quite flatly on 17th December,
At a time of the most acute energy shortage and in our present financial difficulties, it is anomalous—to say the least—that we are subsidising coal and electricity prices at a mounting rate ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th December 1973; Vol. 866, c. 962].
"Ah", the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wanstead and Woodford will say—he is squeezing every drop of political capital out of this—"but we did not know that this would mean a disproportionate increase for night storage users". If the right hon. Gentleman wants us to believe that, he will have to pull the other one.

Mr. Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman has misquoted me. We knew what the Electricity Council's proposals were. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman or his hon. Friends should get so excited. I said so in my speech. I said it on 13th March. I have said it again this evening. We knew what the situation was. I said that they had not been accepted by the Government—nor, in this case, would they have been accepted.

Mr. Varley: The right hon. Gentleman must not squirm in this way. I have not yet finished. There is more I need to say about this.
I have quoted the Electricity Council's official Press handout which was issued three weeks after the General Election. This is what it says:
Increases to the domestic customer will be in the range of 0·3 of a penny for every unit used".
I repeat—"for every unit used".
Now my hon. Friends may say, "But an old-age pensioner in Ealing or Nuneaton would not immediately realise the full implications of that statement as far as off-peak charges are concerned". And, of course, my hon. Friends are absolutely right. But the right hon. Gentleman is not an innocent old-age pensioner. He is a former Minister for Energy.
Now we know from that impeccable and authoritative source, the Peterborough column in the Daily Telegraph.


that he never really got to know how to do the job. It said recently:
Mr. Jenkin had been Minister for Energy for only seven weeks when the election was fought and was still working himself into the job".
I am sure that every hon. Member will wish the right hon. Gentleman well in the crash course that he is taking at the Tory Central Office version of the Open University. He has just admitted that he knew that 0·3p for every unit used included off-peak units.
After all, the penny—or 0·3 of a penny—even dropped with the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) a month ago. He had an Adjournment debate about night storage heating on 24th May—a golden opportunity for the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford to sound forth a blast of indignation on behalf of consumers of night storage electricity. Six hon. Members spoke in that debate, but the right hon. Gentleman was not one of them.

Mr. Mellish: Why was that?

Mr. Varley: Until today, the House has never heard a word from the right hon. Gentleman about the impact of off-peak electricity. His silence up to this moment has been totally disgraceful.
Now, six months after they knew that this price increase was coming, three months after it was announced and a month after the House debated it, the Opposition have finally got around to giving the subject half a Supply Day—the off-peak half. If they believe this to be—

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Mr. Ivan Lawrence (Burton) rose—

Mr. Varley: No. I will not give way.

Mr. Lawrence: Mr. Lawrence rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the Minister does not wish to give way, he must not be pressed to do so.

Mr. Varley: If the Opposition believe this to be a matter of such urgent consequence, why did they not slap down a motion of censure against us on their first Supply Day after the Chancellor announced the price increases in his Budget? It is an interesting fact that they did choose energy as the subject for their first Supply Day, and the right

hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford was the principal Opposition speaker. But the topic they chose was North Sea oil, and they did not force a vote. Now, noting the genuine concern felt widely on this matter, they have decided to jump aboard the bandwagon.
It is not even as though the article of faith which has now been annunciated by the right hon. Gentleman is something that the Tory Party has always had. Far from it. Under this proposed increase, the ratio between standard rates and off-peak rates will be 60 per cent., almost exactly what it was 10 years ago when the Conservatives were in power. At that time, it was 58 per cent. That was the ratio when the right hon. Gentleman came into the House, and he never uttered a squeak about it. No wonder, since before that, under his party, the ratio had been 75 per cent. It was only under a Labour Government in 1965 that it came down to 50 per cent.
The Leader of the Opposition has the brass neck to tell us that the phoney war is over. Never have an Opposition been so brazenly attempting to make political capital out of a decision for which they were primarily responsible. I refer not just to the right hon. Member for Wan-stead and Woodford. No fewer than 10 members of the last Cabinet who were accessories to this decision have had the nerve to write to me to protest about it. They include the right hon. Members for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber), Penrith and The Border (Mr. Whitelaw), Carshalton (Mr. Carr) and Lowestoft (Mr. Prior), the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon), the right hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) and the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym). What an ignominious roll call of phoney warriors! Their behaviour reveals their opportunism and their obsessive hatred of nationalised industries.
After all, the price for domestic oil consumers has doubled over the last few months, but they have not put down a belated motion asking us to phase the oil price increases for those with oil-fired central heating. I well remember seeing an advertisement not long ago which said:
Oil—the cheapest form of central heating.

Mr. Tom Boardman: How many letters of protest has the


Secretary of State received from his hon. Friends?

Mr. Varley: I will tell the House this: I have not received one from the right hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman), who was Minister for Industry in December when the Electricity Council asked him whether it could go to the Price Commission with fuel adjustment clauses. If anyone is responsible, he is.
The trouble is that the Opposition detest the nationalised industries but never hesitate to use them mercilessly as instruments of their economic policy. In fact, the workers in the public sector have been the victims of their pay policy. It was the publicly-owned utilities which their pricing policies compelled to accumulate massive deficits. In the case of electricity, the prospective deficit was £500 million. That is the reason for the heavy price increases that we are debating tonight.
The Opposition motion calls for a "phasing" of the off-peak increase. That is Jenkinese for a delay. A delay means a revenue loss and a revenue loss means a subsidy, but the right hon. Gentleman is on record on the subject on 13th March. He said nothing about differential rates, but he said:
It is now nonsense to go on subsidising energy prices in a period of energy shortage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th March 1974; Vol. 870, c. 327.]
Now, on 20th June, they demand a subsidy. They actually do U-turns in opposition.
We agree with the right hon. Gentleman's latest incarnation, not his previous one. We are subsidising electricity to the tune of £200 million this year. If the Jenkin of 13th March had had his way and we had accepted that it was
nonsense to go on subsidising energy prices
—his words—electricity prices would be going up even more.
The contortions of the Opposition are beneath contempt and I will not trouble further with them. I want to deal with the genuine concern expressed by my hon. Friends. They will share my scorn for the untenable position of the Opposition, but they will want to know, and have every right to know, why the Gov

ernment accepted electricity price increases that the Opposition bequeathed to us.
In the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced three priorities for this Government, and my hon. Friends rightly cheered them. One was housing—£350 million extra. The second was food subsidies—£500 million. The third will cost £860 million in 1974–75 and £1,250 million in the twelve months from 22nd July; that is the increase in social security benefits, including the biggest-ever pension increase, and including—please note—an increase in the heating allowance. That was against the background of the biggest post-war economic crisis—my hon. Friends and I fought the election on that—and against a background of a prospective £1,400 million deficit in the finances of the nationalised industries, again bequeathed to us by the feckless mismanagement of the Conservative Party. That is why we had to accept this intolerable price increase.
My hon. Friends will accept this, but they will ask: why did the increase for off-peak users have to be proportionately so much larger than the general increase? They will say, "We understand that this must be so if there is a flat increase of 0·3p per unit, but why cannot the increase for domestic off-peak users be scaled down to soften the blow?"
What has most upset my hon. Friends and those who bought night storage heaters is that the advertising for this form of heating promised half-price electricity. Under the new price structure, night storage charges will be about 60 per cent. of the standard charge per unit. It is a bit confusing, but adding a flat 0.3 per cent. to both rates—the low off-peak rate and the standard rate—brings about that situation.
Off-peak charges were about 50 per cent. of the standard charge, but they will now be 60 per cent. That is where the sense of grievance lies, and that is where any adjustment should be sought. I discussed this yesterday with Sir Peter Menzies, the Chairman of the Electricity Council, and at my request he will be examining urgently what adjustment can be made to give relief to the domestic consumer on the off-peak rate.
I shall be having further discussions with Sir Peter Menzies, and I shall also


be reviewing, as the amendment points out, the policy for energy prices. But the House will appreciate that very complex issues are involved and that this will take a little time. Meanwhile, my aim will be to restore the differential, so that the charge per unit for off-peak electricity will once again be 50 per cent. of the standard charge per unit.
That is what consumers have asked for, and the restoration of half price electricity for off-peak users will remove the sense of injustice. I undertake to make a statement about the off-peak tariff before the House rises for the Summer Recess, with the aim of implementing the adjustment as soon as possible, and certainly by the autumn. I am sure that that fruitful season of the year will commend itself to the Opposition and I trust the House will accept that the Government are dealing with this matter fairly and with foresight.
Our amendment is one which will, I know, be acceptable to electricity consumers, combining, as it does, a firm commitment to a review with a repudiation of the shoddy record of the Opposition. I commend our amendment to the House.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Michael Fidler: I welcome the final words of the Minister, though I regret most of what he said in introducing what he regards as a final concession. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman spent so much time making a party political issue of this matter. I suppose hon. Gentlemen on the Government benches must welcome any opportunity for amusement in these—for them—rather difficult days.
As a Member of Parliament representing about 77,000 constituents, I am more concerned to see that justice is done to them individually. To me it matters not what history can be quoted by the Opposition or the Government. I have to deal with correspondence from my constituents. and one correspondent says:
I hear that some Labour Members of Parliament are criticising the 70 per cent. charge on night storage heaters. I say three cheers to them.….
I am not on a high income and live alone and at the time of installation the heaters were what I could afford and I am very satisfied with them. There are many people in my position and the fear of an increase is not very encouraging.

I selected a number of letters which I sent on to the right hon. Gentleman and I commend his Under-Secretary of State for the courtesy and speed with which he replied, but I am sorry that the replies did not conform to the tenor of the right hon. Gentleman's speech this afternoon. I wrote on 4th June and received a reply on the 14th, which was excellent, but in that letter the hon. Gentleman said:
I am not aware of any commitment on their part"—
that is, the Electricity Council—
to maintain any precise relationships between off-peak and unrestricted rates".
All I can say is that the Under-Secretary cannot possibly have read the publicity which continued in the Press right up to the end of 1973.
The Minister went on to enclose a memorandum, and here I must criticise the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministers for sending out what I regard as misleading information. I am referring to the memorandum headed: "Electricity price increase: May 1974. Note by the Department of Energy" which the Minister sent me in the hope that it would help me in my replies to my constituents.
Paragraphs 1 and 2 of the document admit that increase will still leave losses, but surely that is irrelevant. Nobody has charged that at this stage the Government have an obligation to introduce such increases as will completely cover all the losses in this industry. The question at issue is not the general increase, with which my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) dealt so adequately, but the distribution of the increase to each category of user of on-peak and off-peak electricity.
In paragraph 3 the Minister agrees that the average increase is 30 per cent., but the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to admit today that the increase might be as high as 55 per cent. However, paragraph 4 of the document gives the game away. It says that for persons who are on full rate all the time the increase will be 10 per cent., where one-fifth of the usage—that is 900 out of 4,500 units—is at off-peak rates the increase will be 30 per cent., and where three-quarters of the usage—that is 9,000 out of 12,000 units—is at off-peak rates


the increase will be 50 per cent. In paragraph 5 he goes on to concede that the standard rate on its own is 32 per cent. more but the off-peak rate increase is actually 67 per cent. calculated on its own. The right hon. Gentleman referred today to the difference between on-peak and off-peak remaining only 0·5 per cent., with the standard rate going up to 1·25p and the off-peak rate going from 0·45p to 0·75p.
The right hon. Gentleman said tonight that this makes a difference of 60 per cent. between on-peak and off-peak, but before the increase the difference was not 50 per cent.; it was actually less—47 per cent. The difference between on-peak and off-peak was less than 50 per cent.
In the last paragraph of his letter the Minister goes on to refer to improved retirement pensions, sickness benefits and other social security benefits, and personal allowances and child allowances. That is fine, but completely irrelevant, because it ignores the special problem of those duped by false publicity about special advantages which decided people to go for night storage heaters instead of other forms of heating.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: My right hon. Friend had the political stature today to announce in his speech measures which will meet the quite legitimate outrage of people who felt conned. Cannot the hon. Member have the political stature to welcome the proposals?

Mr. Fidler: I have, and I shall, if the hon. Member will have patience.
Adding 0·3p to each unit of on-peak and off-peak electricity produces a gross out-of-balance of electricity costs compared with the previous method of adding a percentage increase to each. Another constituent of mine, Mr. Marsh, has given me details of the effect that the proposed present rates will have. His annual bill under the current rates totals £160·71. On the new basis it will work out at £258—an increase of 61 per cent.
I would have urged the Minister, tonight, instead of having this 0·3p on both on-peak and off-peak electricity, to have made a clear statement that as from tonight, without waiting for some

announcement before the Summer Recess, he would restore the old differential percentage between the rates.
I want to emphasise one other thing, and only one other, so as to allow other hon. Members time to speak. With a little knowledge of the industry, having in the past been associated with electricity consumer councils, I know that the great drive has been to persuade people—not necessarily those in unfortunate circumstances—elderly people, or people with little income—but all users—to use night storage heaters to save electricity capacity so that plant could be continually used instead of lying idle at different times of the day and night. To achieve this some inducement is necessary. Even if there were not these differentials in the past, to make the best use of the plant available the right hon. Gentleman should, ab initio, instead of this half rate, be inducing people to use electricity for heating or any other purpose throughout the night hours when demand is at the minimum.
Of course I welcome the announcement he has made—but with this proviso: it is not enough to say that he has asked the electricity authorities to consider the matter favourably; it is not enough, for me, that he should have said today that he hopes to be in a position to make an announcement by the end of July about something to come into operation before the onset of winter. If he is convinced by the arguments not only from this side but from his own side of the House, let him go that extra mile by announcing that he will withdraw the present intention of adding 0·3p and restore the differential, percentage-wise, between on-peak and off-peak electricity, that existed before.

8.34 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I want in the first place to congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he has done this evening. Rarely have I heard a case by the Opposition demolished so swiftly by just two very appropriate sentences from the Government Front Bench.
The performance by the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin)—who has gone—was staggering in its effrontery. We went together to Canada to look at the nuclear production of electricity. He was a pleasant


travelling companion—I have no complaint there—but during our trip he did not give any evidence that he was subject to loss of memory, but he has given plenty of such evidence tonight.
He seemed to object to, and to describe in general terms as deceitful, the advertising by the area electricity boards relating to night storage heating. Yet most of that advertising went on when he was a Minister, and when his right hon. and hon. Friends were Ministers, and they raised no objection to it at the time. If Ministers are to be held responsible now for electricity board activities, Ministers were equally responsible at that time.
Also during the passage of the Statutory Corporations (Financial Provisions) Bill the hon. Gentleman said on several occasions that his Government at that time could not continue indefinitely with a policy of subsidising electricity prices and that sooner or later the industry would have to get back to commercial viability. That is what I mean by loss of memory.
During the General Election campaign a number of questions were put to me, no doubt as a result of my known interest in electricity supply, about the effect of coal and oil price increases on electricity prices. The questions came from those who attended meetings, people who were again to be my constituents. I said that the effect would probably amount to a 50 per cent. increase on an average.
There is, therefore, surely no argument between the two sides of the House about the inevitability of increases in the price of electricity, a secondary fuel source, bearing in mind that all other fuel costs have been increasing at the same time. But I hope that the House will not overlook the fact that retail electricity supply prices during the four years from 1968 until 1972–3 went up by only half of the extent of the general rise in the retail price index, which is tremendously to the credit of this nationalised industry.
The question now is whether the inevitable increase in electricity prices is being spread fairly over the various classes of user, and whether the tariff structure is being arranged in the most desirable way. A difficulty arises here because electricity cannot be sold like little apples. There are two main components in electricity tariffs: the charge

related to capital costs and the charge related to running costs. Electricity cannot be stored as such—it must be consumed at the moment it is made. Therefore maximum demand charges meet peak costs in the ordinary way and off-peak electricity can be supplied relatively cheaply.
The House may be interested to know that the cost of fuel represents half the cost of peak electricity units, but nine-tenths of the cost of off-peak units. Therefore if fuel costs jump, as they have, then every unit of electricity, whether produced on or off peak must bear an equal burden of cost. That is a fact of life—part of the inherent economics of the electricity supply industry from which we cannot escape.
But having said that, in adjusting their tariffs to reflect the inescapable fuel cost, the industry has done the exercise rather crudely. I suspect that there is a hidden clash between the interests of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the interests of the area electricity boards. The truth is that night storage heating has been so successful in this country that it has succeeded in producing something of an artificial mid-day peak. This is becoming a near embarrassment to the CEGB.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that the newer forms of night storage heaters do not reinforce themselves during the day? It is the older ones which do that. Therefore this is not a cumulative effect.

Mr. Palmer: The hon. Lady's intervention assists my argument. It is because the peak was building up in the middle of the day that this new provision has been made. With the latest contracts it is true that there is no mid-day boost. That does not apply however to existing agreements. I think there has been a clash of interests between the CEGB and the area boards and the CEGB at heart is now not too enthusiastic about block storage heating. It is not the kind of thing that it necessarily wants and it has succeeded in getting much of its own way.
The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford was, for once, accurate when he said that the plant used at night is not necessarily being used in


the best way, and I hope that my right hon. Friend in his discussions with the chairman of the Electricity Council will ask Sir Peter Menzies to look at the whole incidence of the new load curve over the 24 hours. I think that a more sophisticated analysis could then be made of the balance of costs between running and capital costs. It might be found then that a greater relief could be given to the users of storage heaters than my right hon. Friend has announced tonight.

8.43 p.m.

Dr. Michael Winstanley: I shall be brief because this is a straightforward, simple issue and the facts are quite clear. In addition, I have a sore throat and I doubt whether I could remain audible for long. This is a much happier occasion for the House than some we have experienced this week. When I came into the House after the last election I honestly felt that we might see this minority Government situation doing something to restore the power of Parliament over the Executive—a power which it seemed had rather disappeared. I have not seen many signs of that since then, but perhaps this debate is such a sign.
This debate is very different from some we have had recently. We are dealing with precisely the kind of matter upon which the House ought to be able to exercise its authority over the Government without precipitating all sorts of violent constitutional crises. It is the kind of issue on which Parliament ought to be able to dictate to the Government. We have a situation in which for a long time electricity boards have been selling night storage heaters in which off-peak electricity was used, on the grounds that people would get that electricity at half price. The advertisements were saying this.
There are three aspects to this question. The first is the welfare aspect, about which bodies like Help for the Aged, the Child Poverty Action Group, Gingerbread and so on, were concerned. There was the feeling that elderly people might get into difficulties and would no longer be able to go on using these appliances. It was felt that many might have recourse to paraffin heaters which are not

altogether satisfactory. There were certain dangers.
Secondly, there was the fair trading aspect. Had a private commercial company suddenly changed its policy in this way, had it sold an article with the promise that supplies would be provided at a certain price and then the price had changed, we would all have felt extremely angry. We would have felt that it was a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
In fact, I pursued the matter from that point of view. I wrote to the Chief Inspector of Weights and Measures, hoping that he would refer the matter to his inspectors to prosecute. I received a letter from him saying that my letter had been transferred to the Minister of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. Subsequently I had a letter from the Minister saying:
If you think that the advertisements contravene the Trade Descriptions Act, you should bring the facts to the attention of the Chief Trading Standards Officer ….
But I had written to him in the first place. I began to think that it would go round and round in circles before anything happened.
For that reason, I wrote to the Director General of Fair Trading. He replied:
I see no reason to doubt that Electricity Boards will carefully reconsider the manner in which they promote the sale of night storage heaters following the recent price increases"—
but what about those people who had already bought them? The letter went on:
… and any statements they make will … be subject to the provisions of the Trade Descriptions Act.
That is all very well as regards any statements that they make, but what about the ones that they had already made? It seemed clear to me that it was in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
Finally, there is the economic and energy aspect. That too is important. The Government want people to use off-peak electricity. If the policy is not changed, there is no doubt that night storage heaters are a dead duck. We have to restore the differential if we want people to use them.
I come now to the speech of the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin), to which I listened with interest. The first part of it apportioned the blame, and I listened to that


with some enjoyment. However, I am concerned not so much with whose fault it is but with who can do something about it and put matters right. Clearly that responsibility rests upon the Government.
If I heard the Secretary of State aright, he undertook to provide something in the way of a safety net for those in special need, rather like the safety net which has been provided already for those in special difficulties, such as elderly people. If that is so, we on the Liberal Bench welcome it and will support it. The Secretary of State also undertook to use his powers in such a way—which he did not outline—that, in the coming few days or weeks, he would restore the differential which existed previously.
If the Secretary of State can confirm that before we rise for the Summer Recess he will announce in the House that the differential has been restored, all that I can say is that, if the House divides on this motion, I shall urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the Government. On this occasion that, to us, would be a not uncongenial experience.

Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman heard me correctly. I shall be having further discussions with the Electricity Council with a view to restoring the differential to 50 per cent. of the normal rates, and before the House goes into recess I shall certainly report to it.

Dr. Winstanley: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his confirmation. Therefore, this has been a happy occasion. It has done something to restore the power of Parliament. I hope that, as long as this place exists, Parliament will maintain that power over the occupants of the Treasury Bench, whoever they happen to be.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: As one of the leaders of the original revolt against the Government's proposals, I am grateful for this opportunity to explain my position.
I deal first with what happened originally. The Tory Government left us a deficit on our desks of £500 million. They left it there surreptitiously, like something which a dog leaves behind a

door and which is very unpleasant to pick up. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer picked up £200 million of it, but the rest he could not pick up and had to leave to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy.
The Tory Government were guilty—perhaps I should not say "guilty"; but the Tory Government had approved the fuel cost adjustment charges. They had taken them to the Price Commission and had them approved. Therefore, they are now trying to blame the Labour Government for something that they would have done if they had remained in power.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: No.

Mr. Tuck: Yes.

Mr. MacArthur: No.

Mr. Tuck: Absolutely certainly, yes. I cannot imagine anything more contemptible.

Mr. MacArthur: What evidence has the hon. Gentleman for making that ludicrous and untrue suggestion?

Mr. Tuck: It is neither ludicrous nor untrue. It is on the record.

Mr. MacArthur: Mr. MacArthur rose—

Mr. Tuck: I shall not give way again. I must be brief.
Therefore, I could not possibly vote with the Opposition on this disgraceful motion which seeks to blame us for what they would have done.
Of course, it does not excuse this Government's doing the very same thing. That was the view that I expressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy, to the Chief Whip, and to other Members of the Labour Party. I know that the absolute increases were the same throughout. However, a small increase on off-peak charges is far more serious to a poor, hard-hit person than is the same increase on the standard charges to a Cabinet Minister. Therefore, I objected strongly to what we were doing. I understood my right hon. Friend's predicament, but I felt that something should be offered by my right hon. Friend or I should have to abstain from voting tonight.
Then came the amendment to the motion. That did not seem to rectify the situation. It was a milk-and-water amendment. It made no improvement whatever. Therefore, I came into the Chamber tonight feeling that reluctantly I would have to abstain from voting.
Then my right hon. Friend gave his forthright undertaking. He has undertaken to review the whole situation. His undertaking meets the Opposition's objection. They did not ask us to abolish the whole of the increase. They suggested that it should be
phased so as to avoid hardship to pensioners, the disabled and other hard-pressed householders.
That is exactly what my right hon. Friend has undertaken to do. He will review the whole situation and bring in this phasing so as to avoid hardship to these people.
I have not so far had reason to doubt my right hon. Friend's word. I have had reason to doubt the words of certain other people—for example, that the United Kingdom would not be taken into the Common Market without the full-hearted consent of the British people—but I have had no reason to doubt my right hon. Friend's word. He has cut the ground from beneath the Opposition. He has pulled the rug from under their feet. He has met their objection. He has undertaken to bring in this phasing before the House rises for the Summer Recess, which will be before the new prices come into operation in August.
I am satisfied with that assurance. I congratulate my right hon. Friend and categorically state that my vote tonight will unhesitatingly be with the Government.

8.55 p.m.

Mrs. Jill Knight: We are all delighted to hear what the Minister has said this evening. But what the Minister must not do without some rebuke is precisely what he did do. He came to the Dispatch Box as a model of outraged innocence, like some sort of male Lady Bountiful spilling his bright ministerial promises from a cornucopia, when he would not have been saying any of those things had not the Opposition forced him to do so. It is high time for us, in this debate, to look at the sequence of the events.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I really mean that. On 24th May her hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) did the House a great favour by initiating a debate on this issue. I refer the hon. Lady to HANSARD for 24th May when, in reply to her hon. Friend, I said:
It has been said that we should take cognisance of this point. We have already taken cognisance of that point. I concede that a Government who were not concerned about the important issue the hon. Gentleman raised would be a very foolish Government This Government listen and learn and are receptive to the point of view expressed by hon. Members."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th May 1974; Vol. 874, c. 818–19.]
In the light of that statement, will the hon. Lady withdraw the comments that she has just made?

Mrs. Knight: No, I shall not so much withdraw them as enlarge upon them. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that.
The story does not begin there. Even if it did, what the hon. Gentleman has read out shows that the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) raised the matter provided that opportunity. It was only because my hon. Friend raised the matter that it began to come to the forefront. But before that happened, it was my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner), showing the powers and ability of some sort of political Sherlock Holmes, who winkled out the fact of these electricity price increases. It was only my two hon. Friends, followed by myself when I tabled a motion on the Order Paper, who caused the letters to start to come in, when hon. Members on the Government benches began to get worried. But I wonder how many of them signed my motion on this matter.

Mr. William Hamilton: We would not touch it.

Mrs. Knight: The hon. and talkative Member has given the game away. The fact is that far too many times in this House hon. Members will not support something that is right simply because they do not like the Member who has put it forward in the first place. That is a great shame.
The situation would not have arisen at all had not the Government, when they came to office, given the miners such a huge increase.

Mr. William Molloy: Huge?

Mrs. Knight: The present situation indicates how right were the previous Government when they said that because the miners had a dirty, dangerous and horrible job, they should have a bigger rise in wages than anyone else. But they also said that, in allowing a wage increase, 16½ per cent. was the limit to which the country could go without stoking the fires of inflation. How right my right hon. and hon. Friends were.

Mr. Molloy: They were wrong. The figures were messed up.

Mrs. Knight: This situation is attributable, to quite a degree, to that enormous and disproportionate wage increase.

Mr. Varley: The hon. Lady has now said something that is very serious and not true. The likely increase in the electricity supply industry deficit of £500 million did not all come, as the hon. Lady suggested, from the miners' wage settlement. One-third came from that. The other two-thirds came from the increase in oil prices.

Mrs. Knight: The hon. Gentleman must listen. I said that it was one of the things that contributed to the present situation. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will do me the honour of reading my speech in HANSARD tomorrow, when he will see that that is what I said.
The point I particularly want to make was briefly mentioned by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Dr. Winstanley). It is something about which the House should be concerned. I believe that all the time the present situation continues we are in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act. The chairman of one electricity board has said in a letter:
The Board has always sought to avoid misleading … the public … we have never gone further than to assure consumers that the off-peak rates will always be favourable".
That is a lie. It was stated not merely that the off-peak rates would be favourable but that they would be half-price. The letter is dated 26th April. I have

here a folder from the Midlands Electricity Board headed:
Electric central heating using half price electricity".
That went out on 6th May, although it was on 27th March that the alterations in pricing were announced. That is a clear contravention of the Act, Section 11(2) of which says:
If any person offering to supply any goods gives, by whatever means, any indication likely to be taken as an indication that the goods are being offered at a price less than that at which they are in fact being offered he shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be guilty of an offence.
If the MEB or any other electricity board had withdrawn those misleading advertisements immediately they knew they were misleading, there would not have been a case. But I beg the Under-Secretary to recognise that that folder seems to be in breach of the Act.
A constituent has written to me saying:
Night storage appears to have been one long con-trick. Since its inception, it has already been reduced from 10 hours per night to 8 hours, without the mid-day boost that was allowed at the beginning. Thus recent investors lose two hours a night on the cheap rate, in many areas.
There can be little doubt that that is in contravention of the Fair Trading Act. Apparently, we are in breach of two Acts. Section 34(1) of that Act reads as follows:
Where it appears to the Director that the person carrying on a business has in the course of that business persisted in a course of conduct which:
(a) is detrimental to the interests of consumers in the United Kingdom, whether those interests are economic interests or interests in respect of health, safety or other matters, and
(b) in accordance with the following provisions of this section is to be regarded as unfair to consumers."
If the actions of the House in directing the electricity boards as to how they shall behave in this regard are, as they seem to me clearly to be, in breach of laws which the House has passed, I know that the hon. Gentleman will feel that that is a serious matter, and it is perhaps one that he will examine.
I warmly welcome what the Secretary of State said. The Opposition have won the battle hands down, and we are delighted. I ask the Minister, in view of


the evidence which I have offered, to recognise that there is a real need for extreme urgency so that we shall not be in breach of the law for a moment longer than necessary.

9.5 p.m.

Mrs. Maureen Colquhoun: First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy on his outstanding and lively contribution. I thank him on behalf of my constituents who made the great mistake in the past of buying night storage heaters. It is clear that increased electricity charges can mean the death of night storage heaters. I cannot say that there will be much regret at their passing. They are not a particularly attractive form of central heating. The user is compelled to flood his home with heat once the unit has been topped up, even though the day may be sunny. To that extent I am extremely sorry for those who have lumbered their homes with these units. I do not think that they are a secure form of heating to buy in future.
People cannot be expected to have faith any more in the electricity boards and their claims about cheap off-peak electricity. I fear that night storage heaters may become the most expensive sideboards in the world. They will be a challenge to every do-it-yourself enthusiast to turn into something useful. I understand that the "innards" of night storage heaters are mainly brick. That can be broken into sections to throw at electricity board salesmen. The heaters could then be turned into useful cupboards in the home in which to store, for example, coal scuttles.
If there is a lesson for my hon. Friends, it is that the nationalised industries should not ape the dubious commercial practices of private enterprise. We should no longer allow them to do so. The sales policy of electricity boards in pushing off-peak electricity, knowing in the long run that it would have to rise in price—and we have probably not yet seen the end of price rises—has badly let down the supporters and advocates of public ownership.
One of the great reasons for the indignation caused throughout the nation is that people expect something better than this from the nationalised industries.

They think that they should not have the morality of a private enterprise huckster. It is important that in future the sales efforts of nationalised industries should be based on truth. They must resist any temptation to copy the sales practices of the private sector which under the previous Government were applauded.
I consider it extraordinary and almost immoral that the Opposition are now endeavouring to make political capital out of a situation that was created while they were in office. I hope that the House will repudiate their impudent amendment.

9.9 p.m.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: I welcome without reserve, except the reserve of reading it in cold print, the announcement that was made by the Secretary of State for Energy. I feel partly responsible, along with others, for this debate taking place because I introduced the Adjournment debate on 24th May. The undertaking given today does not perhaps exceed my wildest dream of 24th May, but it is somewhere near it. I sincerely welcome it.
I welcome it, too, on behalf of the more than 2 million users of night storage heaters. Had the debate not taken the turn that it has, I was going to analyse the dozens of letters I have received from consumers of off-peak electricity. My analysis showed me that three out of every five letters came from declared elderly people, or chronically sick people, and very often from people who were both chronically sick and elderly. I have a letter here, which I shall not read, from an 80-year-old couple who are chronic bronchitics. The point made by all the elderly people—I am sure hon. Members who have received similar letters will agree—was that warmth is an essential and that they would not be able to afford night storage heaters next winter. They simply did not know what to do.
We have now had the undertaking to restore the differential. What will this actually mean in percentage increases to the consumer? We know that it was to have been 70 per cent. Can we be assured that elderly people will be able to afford this form of heating? The Under-Secretary of State in his reply on 24th May referred to the special heating


allowances which are to go up by 10p, 20p and 30p in their different categories. This does not seem to me a sufficient increase to cover the higher cost of off-peak electricity. I should welcome clarification on that point.
Many of those who have written to hon. Members will not qualify for special heating allowances, yet they are people with very slender means. I ask the Government to pay special attention to those who do not qualify for special heating allowances and also to those, many of whom have also written to us, who regularly look after elderly subnormal people in small residential homes. They, too, are going to face great difficulty.
The question has been raised why the Secretary of State has made this announcement. We heard statements here recently by some of his hon. Friends that they might fail to vote with the Government tonight. We have heard references to various pressure groups on both sides of the House. But I cannot believe that the right hon. Gentleman would give in to pressures of this kind. What he has done is to give in to the pressure of the truth of the case.
In this connection, perhaps we can have an even more happy ending to the debate. I think that the Under-Secretary of State has been perhaps wrongly criticised for his part in the debate on 24th May. He was on top form. It was his case that was weak. It is no wonder therefore that the debate has taken the turn that it has taken.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement because it seems to be an equitable solution to the difficult problem of maintaining the former ratio between the standard and off-peak tariffs. He seems to have found a formula which is fair and which, hopefully, will not create excessive problems for the electricity industry.
What is disquieting is that, leaving aside the incredible complexities and technicalities of the pricing of electricity, it must have been clear to the Cabinet that in their economic policy the dam against prices is an essential part of the overall strategy, not only as part of the famous compact with the trade unions but in relation to the nation's confidence

over prices. It is incredibly difficult to understand the insensitivity of the Cabinet to a 70 per cent. price increase on a vital domestic commodity for 2 million families, and I do not understand why it should have taken massive representation from Labour Members and continual letters and badgering for the Cabinet to come to the view that something has to be done.
There is another more serious point. I welcome the fact that we have a Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. It is her job to exercise some effective surveillance over the whole spectrum of prices as they affect the domestic consumer, and some effective surveillance over the practices of major suppliers of goods and services. I was staggered that when I received the first representation from one of my constituents on the matter—I have no personal interest in the matter, because my house is centrally heated by gas—on referring it to my right hon. Friend I found that she had no jurisdiction in the matter. The letter was passed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy. I admire him, but his rôle is clearly to explain, defend and promote the interests of the great public corporations which are interested in the supply of energy. He does this with great skill and verve, as we saw tonight, but in the interests of the consumer we need an independent Minister or public body who is from time to time able to tell the public corporation—whether it be concerned with electricity, gas, coal, railways or whatever—that a particular price increase or trading policy might seem all right to them but in the interests of the consumer should be restrained, modified or even cancelled.
If that is not done I cannot see how my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices can exercise her rôle effectively. She must have a voice in the affairs of these great corporations, which have such a vital impact on our day-to-day lives. If my right hon. Friend had had this authority and had been allowed to exercise her surveillance at the beginning of this unfortunate episode it would never have got this far on the floor of the House.
I am sure that my right hon. Friend would have had immediate discussions and taken immediate action to prevent this incredible disparity between a 30


per cent. rise for the standard tariff and 70 per cent. for the off-peak tariff from going through. The debate may have been valuable for redressing the unfairness between the different tariffs, but it has been valuable, too, in drawing attention to the need of the general public for a powerful independent body or Minister to protect its interests vis-à-vis the great public corporations. I have immense admiration for the technical skill and the achievements of these corporations, but I believe they are not responsive enough to personal individual problems which their pricing or trading policies may cause to families and I hope that that lesson will be acted upon by the Cabinet.

9.20 p.m.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: This is the most satisfying debate I have attended since I have been a Member of this House, because by calling it we have achieved exactly what we set out to do. I have had more letters on the subject of night storage heaters than on any other subject, apart from rates and nurses' pay.
On Tuesday I entertained a party of old-age pensioners from one of the villages in my constituency. I explained the customs of the House of Commons, and after tea I said, "Would you like to ask me any questions?" Immediately from all over the room they all said, "Can you not do something about night storage heaters?" That was not the sort of question I had expected. I had expected questions about the history or methods of Parliament. But electricity was clearly the subject that was uppermost in their minds.
Those people had already played their part. They had written to me. I had passed on their letters to the Minister and the Board. We are all very grateful to my hon. Friend for Conway (Mr. Roberts) for having brought things to a head during the Adjournment debate at the end of May.
I cannot believe that the Secretary of State for Energy, pleasant thought he is, would have had that meeting with the chairman of the board yesterday and come out with the very satisfactory assurance he has now given us if it had not been for my hon. Friend the Member

for Conway and for those many hon. Members on both sides who have pressed for the righting of this injustice.
I do not agree with the hon Member for Northampton, North (Mrs. Colquhoun) in her dislike of storage heaters. I strongly disagree. I believe that storage heaters provide the safest form of heating for elderly people, and I should not like to see them go out of use. I am very glad, therefore, that the Minister has recanted. With good sense he will now give these people the fair deal they were promised by the electricity board, of which, if it had not been for the action taken by hon. Members on both sides, they would have been cheated.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. William Molloy: Having heard the speeches of Conservative Members, knowing they had listened to a speech of the right hon. Gentleman, I am forced to conclude that the later speeches would constitute a doctor's precription to facilitate a vomit.
The essence of this debate is a triumph for the House of Commons. I agree with the hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Liberal bench. He said that backbench opinion would be listened to. Hon. Members on this side have the advantage of Tory Members, in that our opinions are very well listened to and have cognisance taken of them.
The Trade Descriptions Act 1972 has been referred to. The electricity industry is a publicly-owned industry, which might have been liable for action under that Act. This is remarkable, because the Act was introduced to deal with the shyster lawyers and the twisters in private enterprise who have been conning ordinary people for years. No one expected that this would come from a publicly-owned industry. This must be a talking point. It would appear they have slipped a little below their very high standards.
The right hon. Gentleman may have made a Freudian slip in his opening statement when he referred to our great publicly-owned industries. They are great, and they are publicly owned. That is why the Tories will not denationalise them, despite all we heard earlier today.
Members on the Government side were indignant. When the hon. Gentleman the Member for Conway made his speech during the Adjournment debate, one


would have thought that hon. Gentlemen who have occupied important positions in this sphere should have been in the House of Commons to have made it transparently clear that they, too, have had a responsibility in this. They waited for this debate in the hope that they could do a "Pontius Pilate"—wash their hands of the whole affair and advance themselves in white sheets as pure and innocent.
My right hon. Friend's announcement is the result of the pressure that we on the Government side have been applying over the past few weeks. We have the great advantage over the Tories that we can apply pressure to Cabinet Ministers. We demand that they come to our meetings. They cannot descend once in a blue moon, as the Leader of the Opposition does on the 1922 Committee.
We should not forget that vital part of my right hon. Friend's speech which exposed the hypocrisy of Conservative Front Benchers. This debate arose because it concerned a public industry. It would have been impossible if a massive private organisation had been concerned. It is the voices of the people, through their Members on both sides, which have encouraged my right hon. Friend to re-examine this problem. I am confident that he will restore the balance.
I should be less than honest if I did not say that a proper examination should have been made and that this debate was unnecessary. I expect much more thorough examinations from Labour Ministers than from others. A wrong is to be righted, because the industry was accountable to this House. The debate has completely justified the principle of British public ownership.

9.28 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: A prominent feature of both debates today has been the way in which, when Labour Members and Ministers want to get off the subject, they start attacking the 1922 Committee. One would think that they had been at one of its meetings. I know that they are jealous of the facilities that we have there. We heard a lot about it from the Prime Minister, and the. hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) obviously could not find a good argument and so followed in his master's footsteps. The more he does so, of course, the more

likely he is to get on the Front Bench—although it will be on this side of the House.
I welcome this opportunity to intervene in the debate because I, too, have received many letters on this matter, particularly from the elderly, who have relied so much on this type of heating, and some real distress has been caused by the announcement of this huge increase in price.
The hon. Member for Ealing, North said that if a nationalised industry had not been involved we should not have been debating this topic tonight. I do not accept that. It could be said that had it not been for the fact that the increases were necessitated because a nationalised industry was involved we should not have had this debate.
I do not want to belittle the efforts of the Electricity Council. This is an efficient industry, it does a good job of work. It is trusted, and it provides a good service to our constituents. That is why it was a shock to learn of this increase after such a successful advertising campaign for the use of storage heaters.
The fact that by a debate in this House we can put right what we regard as wrong shows that democracy works. The changes would not have been quite so enthusiastically accepted by the Minister if there had not been certain happenings last night and earlier this evening, but I shall be out of order if I develop that theme any further.

9.31 p.m.

Mr. Peter Hardy: When I entered the Chamber I had no intention of participating in the debate, but after hearing the hon. Lady the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) I feel that her comments deserve support from this side of the House because my home is heated by storage heaters. I like them, and find them convenient. Perhaps I should declare an interest. I am delighted, both on my own behalf and on behalf of my constituents, that my right hon. Friend has taken the decision that he announced this evening.
It may be that those who purchased storage heaters some years ago assumed that conditions would never change, but such an assumption would have been rather foolish. Circumstances have a


habit of changing. Anyhow, I shall keep my storage heaters despite the criticisms that have been made of them, and I repeat that I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his statement tonight.
I do not know whether the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts) was seeking to suggest that my right hon. Friend was guilty of an excess of flexibility, because that is not so. It would be foolish if Opposition Members sought to uphold as a political virtue the excessive obstinacy with which this country was inflicted for a large part of the previous administration's tour of office. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is in consultation with the industry to make sure that the impact of the change is not severe.
I feel sure that my right hon. Friend will have at the back of his mind a thought that has occurred to me, and that is that there is a grave danger in seeking to depress the revenue of the energy-producing industries in order to cushion society against the costs of fuel, light and power. Those who are interested in the mining areas know that one of the major reasons for the weakness of the coal industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s was that during the 1950s coal was very much under-priced. Because of that, the nation did not foot the bill for the subsidy which the coal industry was providing. The industry and those employed in it bore the brunt of the cost of the subsidy which the nation enjoyed.
It was foolish for Britain to have such a sustained period of cheap coal or cheap energy, because cheap energy may have many serious disadvantages for the country during the years following a period of subsidy. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will have had that thought in his mind, and I trust that he will not be persuaded that the electricity industry—or the coal industry for that matter—should be expected to cushion society from the effects of inflation by taking upon itself an extremely heavy burden.
The hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) suggested that Government Members had little knowledge of the 1922 Committee. I rather thought he was hoping that some of us might at some time seek to belong to that organi

sation. I do not think that it has much attraction for myself or for any of my colleagues, because it is now 1974. As I said, circumstances change, and circumstances affecting consumers of electricity are bound to change.
I am delighted therefore that, while change is severe, and the former change would have been extremely painful to many people, my right hon. Friend has taken the decisive and flexible and very happy decision he has been able to announce tonight.

9.35 p.m.

Mr. John Hannam: I welcome indeed the change of heart of the Secretary of State and the reintroduction he has promised of the half-price system of future tariffs. I can understand why he has done his own U-turn. After two successive defeats in the Lobbies the Government had to respond to the pressures which have built up in the House and in the country.
I regret the tone in which the Secretary of State spoke in this debate, especially in the first half of his speech. I regret the personal attack he made on my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin). His attack was based on a false assumption that the proposal to increase off-peak prices by the 70 per cent. figure which had been placed before the last Government would have been allowed. The Secretary of State implied that neither my right hon. Friend nor my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman)—a former Minister for Industry—would have resisted such an increase. I reject and I resent that accusation of double standards, because throughout the period of the last administration one thing we were doing was to restrain electricity prices in order to fight inflation. I could quote numerous examples—

Mr. A. J. Beith: What the hon. Member has said confirms the impression which many people had that the depression of electricity prices at a crucial stage during the previous Government was one of the factors which occasioned so large an increase at this stage.

Mr. Hannam: Certainly we sought to restrain prices because of the priority we


gave to the battle against inflation. We accepted that an increase in electricity prices had to take place, but what I am saying is that we would certainly have resisted and prevented such an increase as this, so disproportionate an increase in off-peak charges.
I shall not say more about the right hon. Gentleman's speech, especially the first half of it, because it was not really typical of him. I hope he does not revert to that style on too many occasions. I do warmly welcome the undertaking he has given to reinstate the half-price tariff and I hope he will carry out this change as quickly as possible, because, contrary to the views expressed by the hon. Lady the Member for Northampton, North (Mrs. Colquhoun), I believe that storage heaters have a long-term future and I believe that they will satisfy that demand, and especially in older Victorian houses where modern systems of piped central heating cannot be installed.
There are several occasions during each Parliament when in this House we turn from set pieces of political confrontation, and this debate has been such an instance. The House has turned away from all the statistics and logistical arguments put forward by experts and we have experienced the full-blooded reactions of hon. Members on both sides reacting to the needs of a substantial section of the population who appear to have been unfairly treated.
During the last 24 hours we have been engaged in two major political confrontations and tempers have run fairly high and, if I may be excused for saying so, a certain amount of heat was generated—especially by the Secretary of State for Employment, the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) who, roughly at this time last night, we might consider was storing up heat for off-peak use, perhaps for a kind of mini-foot-warmer.
In this debate we are in a lower key because the subject of off-peak electricity charges transcends party differences and indeed some 2 million householders have been anxiously awaiting this debate and its decision in the hope that the arguments put forward by hon. Members on both sides might convince the Government that immediate action must be taken to reduce the level of off-peak tariff increases to a bearable level. It has been as simple as that.
What we required was action by the Secretary of State to reduce the disproportionate increases in the charges being levied on a group of people, consisting predominantly of pensioners, the disabled and low-income families, who look to us, as their constituency representatives, to stand up and fight for them. Tonight the will of the House of Commons has succeeded in bringing about a change of heart by the machine of Government, which with all its power, has had to listen and bend to the wishes of hon. Members who have spoken from their hearts about a situation which could and should have been avoided.
Many different aspects of the problem have been touched on in speeches from both sides. In the previous debate this afternoon we heard discussed the dangers inherent in extending the area of nationalised, non-market uncompetitive monopoly industry. The off-peak electricity dispute points out the danger where, however hard Governments try to stay out of the day-to-day administration of the public sector, they are inevitably drawn back into decision making because of their ultimate responsibility to the taxpayer and the consumer, who can be left high and dry at the mercy of monopoly decisions on pricing and supply.
I cannot deny, nor can the Government deny, that we are involved, however reluctantly, in certain management decisions of the nationalised industries. In coal, gas, electricity, the railways and steel, variations on the theme of intervention are constantly taking place. Electricity prices are allowed to rise by 20 to 30 per cent., but gas prices are held back. Government investment is related to productivity in one case, but not in another, as we heard in the statement on coal on Tuesday.
Therefore, we have to accept that at this time of rapid inflation and the energy crisis threatening our national standards of living, the Government are involved in the mechanics of management of the public sector. We on this side would like to restrict that involvement to the least amount. However, it is our duty to protect the needy and low-income families of our community.
Therefore, when we have a clear case like that under consideration tonight, a case of a sudden, disproportionate


increase in the cost of one of the basic essential commodities of life, the heating of our homes, we could normally expect action to be taken to spread the load of such increases and to avoid too heavy a burden falling on one helpless section of the community.
The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his predecessor my right hon. Friend the Member for Altricham and Sale (Mr. Barber), both stressed in statements on 17th December and 26th March that, although it was a matter of urgency that electricity prices should be increased, the amount of the increases would be limited. I can assure the House that a 70 per cent. increase would not have been approved by the previous Conservative administration, just as the Secretary of State has now decided not to do this. I do not believe that the present Chancellor of the Exchequer intended such a jump in price, although since March his handling of the economy has caused such economic depression that his room for manoeuvre is obviously severely curtailed.
In our motion we asked for a phasing in of off-peak tariff increases. We did not argue against fuel cost increases having to be passed on. We did not dispute that every effort must be made to reduce the losses being made by the electricity boards.
I am sure that in what we have been saying we have had the support of most Members of the House. We have said, "Let us help those hard-pressed members of the community by limiting the rise in prices to a bearable level in any one year and if possible enable the half-price system to continue." That is what we have achieved tonight. The Secretary of State has, in effect, accepted the terms of our motion. [Interruption.] He says he has gone much further. He has done exactly what we asked him to do.
Because of the pressure exerted during the past few weeks from this side of the House, as well as from Members on the Government side, the machine of Government has had to bend to the will of Parliament. This is exactly what should happen in Parliament in a case such as this.
I was looking forward to a Division tonight. I should like to point out some

thing which the Secretary of State for Social Services said when speaking in the debate on 28th March. She said:
A massive increase in electricity charges can be a body blow to an old-age pensioner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th March 1974; Vol. 871, c. 644]
I thought that that was sufficient indication that we would have the right hon. Lady with us in the Lobby tonight. However, in view of what the Secretary of State has promised, it will be my right hon. Friend's intention to ask leave to withdraw the motion. The procedure of the House requires prior withdrawal of the amendment. If the Secretary of State withdraws his amendment, I undertake that my right hon. Friend will seek leave to withdraw the motion.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. Varley: By leave of the House, I will seek to reply to some of the points that have been raised. I can reply in just a few minutes, and, to assist the procedures of the House, I will withdraw my amendment.
The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) seemed to suggest that I ought not to have attacked his right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) and his hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Boardman) in my opening remarks. I do not want to rake over that ground, now that we have reached such a happy state of affairs. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that his right hon. Friend told us on 13th March that he had accepted the fuel adjustment clauses. If he had understood the consequences of those clauses and how they would apply to night storage heaters he could have added a sentence or two about the effect which they would have. That was 13 days before my right hon. Friend the Chancellor made his Budget Speech. I have given the House an undertaking—

Mr. MacArthur: I listened with interest to what the right hon. Gentleman said earlier. He did not say to what extent this undertaking would apply to the massive increase in off-peak heating charges for Scotland, which are on a different scale from those in England. Can he make some comment on that?

Mr. Varley: I can only say that the situation is not comparable. I have the sponsorship, if I can put it that way, of


the fuel industries in England and Wales. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has some statutory responsibility for the electricity supply industry in Scotland. In the light of what I have said today, he will be looking at that situation to see whether any changes need to be made.

Mr. Beith: The right hon. Gentleman may be unaware—although he has responsibility for the fuel industry in England—that it is partly supplied by the South of Scotland Electricity Board—in parts of England which I am privileged to represent. May I press the right hon. Gentleman to ensure that the Secretary of State for Scotland deals with those parts of England affected by the South of Scotland Board?

Mr. Varley: I will certainly draw that point to my right hon. Friend's attention.

Mr. MacArthur: It is intolerable that the House should not be told tonight what the position is to be in Scotland and some parts of northern England following his statement. All I can assume is that he has rushed into a decision in face of the strength of the opposition to these proposals, and that no consideration has been given to this point whatever. We must demand a statement tonight.

Mr. Varley: Throughout my speech and throughout most of the debate my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office, has been present. He has noted everything that has been said. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the point he has raised will be taken into consideration. It is not an easy matter to make adjustments. The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Fidler) suggested earlier that a direction could be issued. That is not the case at all, and it will be necessary to engage in detailed discussions with the Electricity Council, which in turn will have to consult the Electricity Boards in order to implement the arrangement that I have made. That will take some time. Hon. Members will recall that I said that, before the House went into recess, I should come back and make a statement about progress.
There are one or two other misconceptions to which I would draw attention.

The point was made forcibly by my hon Friend the Member for Ealing (Mr. Molloy) that the motion was an attack upon a nationalised industry and that the Opposition would not attack private industry in the same way. There is a great deal of truth in what he said. One has only to look at oil prices and at oil advertising to realise that perhaps there are matters there which could be made subject to procedures under the Trade Descriptions Act. I have before me a wodge of papers referring to oil central heating, issued not all that long ago. One paper points out that oil-fired central heating by Esso is 10 per cent. cheaper to install and 15 per cent. cheaper to run than gas-fired central heating. That is no longer the case, of course.
The Opposition decided to base their motion upon the increase in the price of off-peak electricity. In their present skittish mood, I am not sure that they will not move a motion next week on oil prices and the 100 per cent. increase in the cost of oil-fired central heating. The right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford may even suggest that the Government set up a State buying agency to buy up all the oil at the docks. One can never tell, given the present mood of the Opposition.
A number of other points were made in the debate, but I think that I have dealt with most of them. Before I withdraw the amendment, it only remains for me to repeat that I shall get down to urgent discussions with Sir Peter Menzies, the chairman of the Electricity Council. We shall be examining the situation as quickly as possible. We have conceded what the consumers asked for—that is, to remove their sense of injustice and to restore half-price electricity for off-peak users. When all the necessary discussions have taken place, I shall come to the House and report progress.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — MINISTERS OF THE CROWN BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. OSCAR MURTON in the Chair]

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

INCREASE IN LIMIT ON NUMBER OF MINISTERS IN COMMONS

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

9.54 p.m.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: I wish to make one or two critical remarks about this clause.
All too often in this Chamber, we assume automatically that Bills come before the House for a very good purpose and, at this late hour, many hon. Members think that they are not worth debating. However, I was struck by the remarks earlier of the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Dr. Winstanley). He said that the function of this House was to control the people who sat on the Treasury Bench. That is a most important principle which we should always observe and of which we should never lose sight. This clause may well cause us to lose sight of that principle.
There was a time no doubt when the figure in Clause 2 was much lower than 91. I dare say that the number of paid servants of the Crown working in this Chamber as Members of it was quite small. In those days the English constitution, as it was at one time, the British Constitution, as it is now, was given greater expression from the point of view of parliamentary democracy than today.
We have now reached a stage where the proportion of Members who are paid servants of the Crown is very high indeed. Surely the time has come for us to put a limit on their numbers. We ought not automatically to pass Bills whenever it appears necessary and convenient for a Government to have more Ministers.

Mr. James Kilfedder: I think I am right in saying that in 1967 there were only 70 Ministers. There

has been a great increase. This is deplorable, because back benchers are losing their influence. The more jobs there are for those who support the Government, the less the influence of ordinary Members representing various regions of the country.

Mr. Stanbrook: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He has made the point that I wish to commend to the Committee.
The old principle or doctrine of the separation of powers in the English constitution was so much admired by theorists such as Montesquieu that it was commended to Continental constitution-makers and was adopted by the Founding Fathers of the United States and enshrined in their constitution. However, while it has many merits, it never applied to the British or the English constitution. We prefer to mix the executive with the legislature and the judicial function. We have a system in which some of our judges are legislators and some—only some—of our legislators exercise the executive power. The smallness of the numbers is very important.
Those Members of the other place who are judges are few in number compared with the total of those who are entitled to sit in that place. Therefore, that judicial element, except when that place sits in a judicial capacity, is there in only a representative, but useful, capacity.
In the House of Commons we have an executive which is gradually becoming more dominant over the legislature. The strength of the executive is and should be in its control of the executive power. The strength of the legislature should be in its control of the executive.

Mr. Bob Cryer: If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about the control of the executive by the legislature, may I ask whether he accepts that the Lord Chancellor should be discarded and a Minister of Justice appointed in his stead to be brought into this Chamber to be answerable to the legislature?

Mr. Stanbrook: I think that raises a somewhat different point. In essence, the hon. Gentleman is asking for a Member of this Chamber who is able to answer for the Justice Department, as he would call it, in the House of Commons. There may be a good argument for having a


Member of this Chamber who answers for the head of the Justice Department, or, as at the moment, for the Lord Chancellor. We do not, strictly, have that at present. But the principle of having the head of the judiciary sitting in the other place as a Member, and yet also as a Member of that other place, is one which we have never disputed. It is of some value that we should mix these two functions. The point that I am trying to make—

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Ministers of the Crown Bill and the Pakistan Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Harper.]

Orders of the Day — MINISTERS OF THE CROWN BILL

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. Stanbrook: The point I am trying to make is that while it is useful and in accordance with our constitution and traditions to have those who represent one of the three branches of our constitution present in each of the others, so as to give full representation to the separate facets of our national life, we should keep a close watch upon the extent to which the one dominates the other.
Our parliamentary democracy is founded upon the principle that the strength of the legislature is its control of the executive. Where we get an executive whose strength is derived not so much from control of the executive power but from control of the legislature, we are standing our national democracy on its head. That is not the way that parliamentary democracy should be applied or exists in principle. It is certainly not the way in which children are taught about the whole principle of parliamentary democracy.
It may be asked, why raise this point at this time? If there is any time at which this point should be raised, it is

when the number of Ministers in the House of Commons is increased. We acknowledge that there should be a limit. We pass a law to say that there should be no more than a certain number who are servants of the Crown sitting in the House of Commons—especially at times of minority Government. So we should accept that as a principle. But every so often a Bill comes before the House increasing—as this clause does—the number of paid servants of the Crown sitting as Members of the House of Commons.

Mr. George Cunningham: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that from time to time we also increase the number of Members of the House of Commons and that that number has risen from 630 to the now ridiculous figure of 635, which is a much bigger increase than the increase in the number of Ministers proposed in the Bill?

Mr. Stanbrook: That may well be, but the proportion that the increase in this case bears—an increase of four to 95—is far greater than the increase of five in addition to 630. The process that I have described is right in both absolute and relative terms.
We must set a limit and we must discuss this at some point. The best point is when the House of Commons is asked to say that there should be an increase in the number of its own Members who can draw a salary from the executive. That time has come now. We should say that if the limit is set at 91, it should remain at 91 and that the function of the House of Commons is to control that 91. By permitting, as it were, the recruitment to their numbers of an extra four, so as to make it 95, we are perhaps sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

10.5 p.m.

The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Robert Sheldon): The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stan-brook) referred to part of the Second Reading debate, but it might be as well to go over some of the ground again for the benefit of those hon. Members who were not present then.
The first important point is that in 1965 a larger number of Ministers could be appointed than can be appointed under the Bill. Secondly, whereas one can understand that there are problems when


the numbers of Ministers are increased, for reasons that the hon. Gentleman stated and reasons that we know, the tasks of Ministers are obviously extended as long as a Government operate on the theory and principle that there will be more intervention in industry and in the life of the country generally than there was 10 or 15 years ago.
When the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) points out that there has been such an increase since 1957, he is right to lay the stress on that time when Government intervention was much less than it became during the next decade. The expansion of the executive into areas about which it had expressed little concern occurred during the 1960s. That was when the Labour Government came into office pledged to intervene in a number of aspects of our national life in which hitherto the Government had not thought it necessary to intervene. The last Conservative Government, who were pledged to reverse that process, changed their mind and intervened, as much as, and in some respects even more than, the Government before them.
It is becoming clear that this is one aspect of our national existence that must be recognised. The people, for good or ill, and I believe for good, understand that the Government have a responsibility to take action in the interests of the country as a whole. If they do not act in the way that the people think right, that Government's chances at the subsequent election will be that much less.
This is a decision not of the Labour Party, of this Parliament, or of the last Parliament or the last Government; it is a decision of the people that they want certain actions to be taken by the Government. If things are not going as they expect or wish, they will expect the Government to take action. It was a response to that wish by the people as a whole that led both the previous Government and this Government to intervene in industrial and other areas in which Governments had not hitherto intervened.
The Government are responsible for a high level of public expenditure. They are now responsible for nearly half of all the expenditure in the country—

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: Too much.

Mr. Sheldon: The previous Government did not change it, so the hon. and gallant Gentleman's quarrel is obviously with his own Government. In the 1920s the proportion of public expenditure was much lower.
There is a definite need for Government Ministers to control the increase in expenditure. As long as we are to spend so much more, that expenditure must be controlled by the Government, responsible to this House. That is the only way in which we can operate.
Therefore, we start with the premise that the Government find themselves intervening more and more, because of the wish of the people, and as a consequence take on more and more expenditure, and as a further consequence have to appoint Ministers to control that expenditure. If the House wants to change that process, it must go to its roots and cut out the intervention. Many Conservative Members wish to do that. They failed with their Government, because their Government accepted the wishes of the people.

Mr. Robert Redmond: I think that the Minister is putting words into our mouths. He is saying the exact opposite to the intervention that I wish to make. The argument that he is making is strong, but the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) has made is that there are not enough back benchers in proportion to the number of Ministers so as to give back benchers an adequate control of the executive. If there is more and more Government intervention, we want more and more back benchers in proportion to the number of Ministers. If we are to reduce the number of back benchers by increasing the number of Ministers, we might well restore the balance by having a few more hon. Members from Ulster.

Mr. Sheldon: That is not the way in which I would look at the matter. On this occasion I speak as an individual and I say that we should consider the matter in another way. What we need are more effective back benchers with more tools and greater servicing so that they can properly carry out their function. As long as Governments have to acquire responsibilities they will have to appoint the Ministers to carry out the tasks that come before them. That is the task of


government and it is a task that Governments are willing to undertake.
This measure would allow a small increase in the number of Ministers that a Government may appoint. We believe that it allows for a necessary increase for the reasons that we stated on Second Reading and for those that I have tried to make clear this evening. I hope that the Committee will give the clause an easy passage.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles: I do not wish to oppose this measure, but I wish to make one or two remarks about it. The Minister has said that Governments are intervening more and more. I am bound to say that I must agree with him. That is what is happening. It leads one to believe that it is not too much to say that one of the greatest threats to democracy is that our system has become so democratic that it is in danger of coming to a standstill. We are now asked to take another step and to authorise a few more Ministers.
The fantastic work load that falls on Ministers both senior and junior is a terrible criticism of the way in which our parliamentary system operates. We are all familiar with seeing a new administration come in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and full of enthusiasm. Within a few weeks they are clogged up and it is impossible to get at them. They are spending all the hours that God sends at their desks and the system has once again become constipated.
It is often said, and quite rightly, that Ministers and Governments have no time to think. That is perhaps why we peck and scratch at one another like barnyard hens across the Floor of this honourable House to an extent that must be disgraceful and astonishing to people from outside who sit in the Public Gallery watching us. In this respect we would do well to take a lesson from those in another place. Matters are there discussed in a much more reasonable way. I say with the utmost respect to the Minister that it is not much of an argument to say, "Because you did not do it therefore we should not do it".
I do not pretend to put forward a solution to all these problems at such a late hour or at any stage, but I feel that we should limit the number of Questions, in-

cluding Written Questions, that hon. Members can put to Ministers. The system should operate so that an hon. Member can put a Question when he wants to find out something in particular but he should not be allowed to make mere gestures to his constituents by tabling damned silly footling Questions merely to get himself into the local paper. I think that Ministers will all agree—and I am not likely to be one—that hon. Members should be rationed as to the number of letters that they can send to Ministers from their constituents. For example, if Mrs. Bloggins has lost her purse in a supermarket and writes to her MP asking him to do something about it, it is terribly easy merely to refer the matter to the Minister concerned. It must be hell to be on the receiving end. The system makes it easy for hon. Members, but that is a matter that we should consider.
We should also consider limiting the length of speeches in the House. That is part of the required formula—and that is why I shall sit down now.

Dr. Michael Winstanley: I agree very much with what the Minister has said about the need for more Ministers to share the load when there is a need for greater government intervention. I accept the argument that many Ministers and Government Departments are now doing things which were not formerly done and which need Ministers to undertake them.
But I also accept some of the arguments put by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) with regard to accountability—that if we increase the number of Ministers we introduce possible dangers regarding accountability of the Government in relation to the rest of the House.
10.15 p.m.
I would be more sympathetic to Clause 2, increasing the number of Ministers from 91 to 95, if we were talking not about Ministers but about Ministries. I have had great difficulty in trying to find out which Minister is responsible in these large blunderbuss types of Department which have been created in recent years. The Secretary of State for the Environment has somewhat wide and ill-defined powers. When I write to the Department I get back all sorts of answers from all


sorts of people. We would do better if we knew who was responsible for what.
For example, I very much regretted the merging of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Security. Pensions are a different matter from running the National Health Service. The old order, when we had a Minister of Health responsible for the NHS to this House, was much more valuable. We knew just who was responsible. Accountability was then so much easier. The Department of the Environment is very unwieldy. If there is a fault, it is difficult to find out who is at fault.
Despite all this, however, the Government obviously need more Ministers to carry out the responsibilities, but I accept what has been said about accountability. Accountability would be better served if we redivided some of these large Departments and made certain that the House knew who were in charge of what.

Mr. Edward Lyons: There is merit in the argument that the more Ministers appointed from members of the governing party, the less chance the executive will have of being challenged by their own party. But there is one particularly strong argument for increasing the number of Ministers. Civil servants have a vested interest in keeping the number of Ministers as small as possible. The more stretched a Minister becomes by work, the more responsibility his civil servants get. It is a common complaint about Governments that, after the first year or so, Ministers, having started off trying to implement the party manifesto, are ground down by the variety of jobs they have to do—not least by the calls that this House makes on them—and in the end delegate more and more to their civil servants so that civil servants are making more and more decisions.
Therefore, the more Ministers there are, the more chance there is that the advice they are getting from civil servants will be carefully scrutinised. They will pay more attention to the matters that come before them, and there is more chance that the views of the Minister's own party will get through.
On the other hand, if there are few Ministers, there being a limit to what human nature can achieve, the civil

servants will in the end implement their own policies. We are faced with the choice between reducing the power of back benchers by increasing the number of Ministers and giving civil servants possibly more power by having only a small number of Ministers.
Society itself is much more complex these days. Governments find themselves forced into further and further intervention. In any case, we would need more Ministers to deal with the complexities of problems with which the Government are faced, quite apart from the question of intervention in a specific matter. We have recognised these facts by increasing the number of Ministers. On balance, therefore, it seems to me that the Bill is necessary.

Mr. Stanbrook: Does the hon. and learned Member think that the device adopted in the French Assembly whereby every person on becoming elected to that Assembly nominates a deputy who takes office as a member of the Assembly when the member himself is appointed a Minister might not serve the purpose the hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind? Under that system we could arrange for as many Ministers as we liked while retaining a full complement of independent members in the House of Commons.

Mr. Lyons: I regard that idea with interest, but it does not commend itself to me. The other suggestion tonight—that Members should be given more resources—is much more sensible. The fact is that MPs do not regard themselves as sufficiently individually significant. If each MP regarded himself as being far more important than he, the Ministers and ordinary electors at present think, he would begin to get a full staff, he would refuse to be pushed about and there would still be individual Members of Parliament to stand up against the executive when necessary. When we have no facilities and inadequate services we begin to see ourselves as unimportant, almost as lapdogs of the executive, and we do not dream of asserting what should be the true importance of the Member of Parliament. By not asserting that importance, we are letting down democracy and our constituents because we are the representatives of the people in the first place. We should represent them with panache, courage and pride.
The system is so arranged as to prevent us from doing that by putting some of us 30 to an office, by keeping us apart from our secretaries and by not providing us with sufficient resources to have adequate secretarial assistance—all matters which successive executives have connived at in order to maintain back benchers in a position of relative impotence. When our colleagues who become Ministers eventually decide to operate on behalf of those of us who are not Ministers, they will also be operating on behalf of the people of this country and then we shall have a much stronger check on the executive and we shall not have to worry about five or six Ministers, more or less.

Mr. Bob Cryer: This has been a useful discussion about the power of the executive and its relationship with the legislature. I am in favour of the clause, which extends the number on the executive, but may I expand a little on the point I made in the interjection?
If this legislature is to have the proper and adequate control, we should have everybody in this Chamber who has any executive powers answerable to us. It is an antique anomaly that we allocate a huge amount of power—following Montesquieu—to a man appointed by the Government as head of the judiciary who is a political appointee and is therefore not impartial. He is a member of the Cabinet and of the executive, but he is never in this Chamber to answer our Questions. We cannot put Parliamentary Questions down to him. I am referring, of course, to the Lord Chancellor. As long as the head of one of the most important powers in this country, albeit in theory an independent power, is separate from the executive, but still consulted by it, this legislature is robbed of an opportunity to subject that part of the executive to proper and adequate scrutiny as we are elected, after all, to do.
In my view the position of the executive is most unsatisfactory. Parliament is slow to change. Those of us who are fresh into Parliament may seem brash to those who have been here for many years and who feel that we should perhaps conform much more readily to the old customs which are time-hallowed, but there are many things that to us seem strangely absurd and quaint and could well be dispensed with.
The notion of lifting out 120 people from the majority, or in our case the minority, party, and giving them powers to make executive decisions completely remote from back benchers, and delegating to them enormous powers of legislation, is wrong. I do not have to emphasise the powers given to the Secretary of State for Employment under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Bill. He has power to modify or repeal Acts of Parliament. He can sweep them to one side. He can do this with a very nominal procedural negative resolution which creeps through Parliament.
The Order Papers produced each day are not couched in language which enables every hon. Member to understand them at a glance. They are couched in language which is antique, old-fashioned, and which should have been replaced 100 years ago. The ordinary Member of Parliament, who is put into this Chamber without any training or occupational guidance, has to go through a mass of antique wording to obtain information, to act as a check on the executive which has been handed powers of enormous magnitude because of the very complications of government, which are increasing day by day.
I support the extension under this clause. I suggest it might be prudent, while having an additional number of Ministers, to look at the way in which they operate. Local government operates in a far more sensible and democratic way. If one is elected to serve in local government, one is not shoved on to the back benches with a subject committee to keep one occupied so that one does not become bored between votes. One is given the opportunity of serving on decision-making committees where one can argue and participate in the decision making
The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) has made the point that the executive is surrounded by a continuing Civil Service. The Civil Service does not change from election to election, as we change. Civil Servants are far closer to Ministers than are many Members of the legislature who belong to the executive's political party. It is possible for civil servants—with their knowledge, expertise and ability—to influence Ministers to their way of thinking and against the decisions and


attitudes that the executive would normally wish to adopt.
Therefore, the existing pattern in local government of having committees which, when their decisions are made, are still answerable to the full assembly of the council—in this case it would be Parliament, where a Minister and back benchers would be involved in arguing about decisions—has much to commend it.
Within this parliamentary system we must have a serious look at the way in which Parliament can work because, although there is much greater Government intervention, we cannot continually add Ministers to a point where virtually everybody in the majority party will be on the payroll. Parliament will have to take a look at itself.
10.30 p.m.
Hon. Members may say, "He is a brash newcomer saying this." But a newcomer has not been influenced by the time-hallowed traditions. The statutes, the portraits, mean very little to me. I come fresh-eyed from a provincial constituency. I marvel that Parliament has not changed already to meet the continuing and increasing demands made on the Government. The back bencher has a greater part to play than simply exercising jurisdiction in the Chamber and taking part in the odd Select Committee and Standing Committee.
I recommend some investigation of a committee system under which a committee could delegate powers to a Minister, with some element of secrecy. There are large areas of decision making that a committee could usefully debate. When a Member wanted to raise issues, he could do so in the committee. Local councillors do this as a matter of course on committees of which they are members, and they can participate in the decision making. Here, we feed matter into a machine, much of which is controlled by the Civil Service, and hopefully extract the answer.
I support the clause, but I hope that the Government are aware of the grave shortcomings of the system and know that length of service does not mean complacency and an acceptance of the status quo here. Change must come. People outside look at our proceedings with amazement, as I do. In what I hope will be a long stay here, I hope that

my way of looking at Parliament will never wear off and that I shall never absorb the antiquities which are so superfluous and absurd.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 and 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedules 1 to 3 agreed to.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third Time and passed.

PAKISTAN BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.—[Mr. Alexander W. Lyon.]

Mr. David Lane: On a point of order. It would help the House to have a brief explanation of the background to the Bill, to which one or two of us might want to respond.

10.33 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): I had thought that the House had worked hard today and did not need to deal at length with this measure.
The Bill is in effect a continuation of the Pakistan Act 1973, brought forward by the previous Government to cover the interim stage while Pakistanis who, by that Act, became aliens were allowed to exercise their civic right to vote while they were in the process of being registered as citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. The final date for applications under the Act was 31st August this year. It was expected that by that time most of the applications would have been processed and that the provisions of the Act would allow people who had applied and were on the register of parliamentary electors to vote while that register was current and to be included in the register which came into force in February. It was thought that that was adequate to


deal with the problem of allowing them their civic rights in this interim period. Unfortunately, as with all the best laid plans of mice and men, things gang aft a-gley.
A considerable number of people have applied for citizenship-80,000 to date—and we expect that before the final date the figure will be about 90,000. These applications take a considerable amount of time and effort in investigation, and although we have increased the staff dealing with these applications the backlog is considerable. To date we have dealt with about 28,000 applications, about 18,000 are being processed, and the rest have still to be done.
In those circumstances, it is not expected that we shall be able to finish this task much before the end of next year. It is, therefore, necessary to extend the period in which these people are allowed to be registered as voters in this country. For that purpose, we have introduced the Bill which adds a paragraph to the original Section 3(5) to extend the period for which they are eligible to be registered for as long as is necessary—we shall not make the mistake of having to bring in a new Bill next year if we do not finish—up to the time which the Secretary of State may specify in an order that will be laid before the House. We shall not have to trouble the House any further with a Bill at 11 o'clock to deal with this problem. We hope that we shall not have to extend the period beyond the end of 1975. That means, in effect, that we should have to carry on until the register came into effect in February 1976.
I am anxious that we should get through the applications as quickly as possible, and I have considered whether we should take on more staff to deal with them. Although the initial processing of the applications can be done by clerical officers, the actual work of judgment of the applications has to be done by executive officers and above, and the training of an executive officer is about a 10-month job.
It is difficulty to justify taking on many more staff unless they will be used in the other areas of the Department. Quite frankly, though, I think that there is a case for doing that, since we are heavily overworked in Lunar House in Croydon in the immigration department. The

amount of paper that goes through there is a wonder to behold. I should very much like to increase the number of staff, but this means a call on public resources and one has to justify it.
I hope that those hon. Members—this is not central to the Bill—who have an interest in immigration cases and write to the Home Office about them—either to me or to the Department—and find that it takes a great deal of time to get a reply will continue to complain bitterly about the delay so that I can send all their letters to my hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to show how much more staff we need to deal with this problem.
A matter which struck me forcefully after I had been in the Department for only a few days was that we must face the task of having a humane immigration service which deals quickly, effectively and humanely with the applications that come before it, and that cannot be done if people have to be asked to deal with applications at the rate at which the staff at Croydon have to deal with them. There is a case for increasing the number of people we have working on nationality applications in order that subsequently they can be used on immigration cases. I am looking into that point.
There is little more that I can say about the Bill at the moment but, with the leave of the House I shall later answer any questions which may arise.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. David Lane: The House will be grateful to the Minister of State for explaining the reason for and purpose of the Bill. We are happy to support it, and we appreciate the feeling way in which the Minister spoke of his wider immigration responsibilities. We also pay tribute to the work of the staff on immigration and nationality matters. Whether involved as ordinary Members or as Ministers, we realise what an exceptionally difficult and sometimes burdensome job it is, and we are glad to have an occasion such as this to pay tribute to the staff.
It was always intended that Pakistanis settled here should continue to play their fullest part in the civic life of this country, including voting at local and parliamentary elections. In the Pakistan Act 1973, to which the Minister referred, we took a great deal of trouble—it was


perhaps the provision which caused the most head-scratching—to avoid any unintended disfranchisement of Pakistanis. Section 3(5) of the Act assumed that all initial applications would be dealt with before October 1974, when the new electoral register was to be compiled.
The Minister has explained that the numbers applying to be registered as United Kingdom citizens have turned out to be rather higher than were originally forecast. It is clearly right that any of them still in the queue next October, when the work of putting together the new electoral register starts, should not be penalised, through no fault of their own, simply because it is impossible to get the administrative job finished in time. So it is proper for the House to extend the transitional arrangement in the way the Minister proposed.
I was interested in what the Minister said about the closing date for the arrangements. He said he hoped that the whole job might be finished by the end of next year, although not much before the end of next year. We appreciate the difficulties of the work involved, but I hope that it will be possible, as the staff get more and more into the momentum of it, to finish the job before October 1975 so that the transitional arrangement can be wound up before the subsequent electoral register comes to be compiled.
However, we must wait and see, and in the meantime we accept the sense of leaving an element of flexibility. I make my plea about finishing the job before October 1975 because I believe that transitional arrangements make less sense the longer they remain in force.
We express our goodwill to the Pakistani community in this country, particularly those registering as United Kingdom citizens. I hope that I do not show any partisanship if I wish the Pakistani cricketers an enjoyable tour.

10.44 p.m.

Mr. Edward Lyons: I support the final remarks of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane). I hope to have an opportunity of seeing the Pakistani Test team when it does battle against England in Leeds fairly soon. The Bill is a just measure and, as far as I am aware, the Government have produced it without any back-bench pressure.
The Chairman of the Post-graduate School of Studies in Social Sciences at Bradford University has directed a study of Asian voting in Bradford. The study was concerned with voting patterns and the extent to which Asians used the vote. It is interesting to note, for example, that in certain polling stations in Bradford there was an enormous increase between 1966 and 1974 in the percentage of Asians who used the vote.
In one polling station in 1966, 35·8 per cent. of the Asians voted. In 1970 the figure was 67·2 per cent. and in 1974 it had risen to 75·3 per cent. Examining the figures for the seven polling stations we find that the lowest percentage turnout among Asians was 70·5 per cent. The figures for the European voters in the same polling districts are interesting. In 1974 the Asian turn-out was, in all cases, higher than the European turn-out, in percentage terms. The European figures for 1974 were 37·6 per cent. and 71·6 per cent.
In areas where there are many Asians it can be seen that they vote in greater strength than indigenous voters. That shows that they treasure the vote and is an indication of how much they will welcome this measure.
All hon. Members concerned with immigrant areas will have received letters complaining about the delay by the Home Office in processing applications for registration as United Kingdom citizens. It is perhaps necessary to say that this Bill has nothing to do with immigration. Whenever we discuss anything to do with immigrant communities there is some suggestion that we are talking about immigration. This Bill has to do with status, not immigration.
I have found that there have been complaints to the effect that the delay in processing applications for registration is likely to extend beyond the 12-month period of grace allowed by the Pakistan Act 1973. By that Act Pakistanis are aliens by September 1974, and the law recognises them as such. There is a reluctance by Pakistanis to go abroad for holidays or for any other reason on a Pakistani passport if they know that they will return after the expiry of the 12-month period of grace.
I believe that their fears are groundless. I believe that it they are resident here


and go to Pakistan and return here in November they will be allowed in on a Pakistani passport, even though Pakistanis are aliens. It is not possible to convince them of this. They believe that, if they go to Pakistan and return on a Pakistani passport—although they may have lived here for 10 or 12 years—they will have difficulty in re-entering.
Therefore they are pressing hard for the processing of their applications for United Kingdom registration. They want a United Kingdom passport to show at the port of re-entry. I know that the Home Office is overborne with applications and does not have enough staff to deal with all of them. But perhaps it could be flexible in terms of priorities.
If a Pakistani says that he applied several months ago for registration and that he wishes to go to Pakistan in July for his daughter's wedding and that he will be staying there until December, perhaps the Home Office could give that sort of applicant priority so that he could have the United Kingdom passport to show when he returns.
Whereas I appreciate the difficulty my hon. Friend has, in that it takes 10 months to train an official and not enough officials are available, and that it is difficult to accelerate the processes, it should be possible to ensure that where a special case is made out, that person can be given priority. That would very much please the members of the Pakistani community.
I shall not take up what the Minister said about Pakistanis, Indians and Bengalis, where shortage of staff produces delays. However, I congratulate the Minister on the technique he has evolved in passing over a good number of these applications to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. In the previous Government that did not occur with the Home Office They took all things connected with immigrants to their bosom, and their bosom was, of course, heavily overburdened.
In this administration, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs is almost in the same position as the Home Office. He is writing to me the same anguished letters which for years I have been receiving from the Home Office. Clearly, a special technique has been evolved in the Home Office where it is heavily borne in on the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs that the situa-

tion needs looking at abroad very closely indeed. If the Foreign Office was not aware of this under the previous administration, it has certainly been aware of it since the present Minister took over at the Home Office. I do not blame him, because I know how heavily he is stretched with his work in his Department.
Now that he is joined by the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, with at least two Ministers conscious of the situation, it is to be hoped there will be some additional pressure for progress in dealing with this matter.

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Robert Redmond: I apologise for raising this matter at this time of night in another Pakistan Bill, but this debate reminds me of the debates in Standing Committee on the 1973 Bill when the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), the Minister, and I joined to defeat the Conservative Government on that Bill.
I particularly remember in that Standing Committee suggesting that a measure such as this might be necessary because we did not allow enough time in the original Act for all applications to go through. It is pleasant to say, "I told you so", but it is not controversial.
I know what happens when one writes to the Minister about the processing of these applications. I wrote a long letter some time ago. It is probably awaiting a reply, but he has replied to part of the letter already tonight and tomorrow's HANSARD will be useful for me to send to the members of the Pakistan Society. The point made to me by the Bolton Branch of the Pakistan Society is that they are bothered about the time taken.
The other point I should like to put is about the case of a person who came from Pakistan with a British passport perhaps a decade ago and has since lost the passport which brought him in. He feels that he has a problem in his application. He can produce a record of contributions to the National Insurance on a card which proves that he has been working in this country for 10 years, and a certificate from his employer that he has been in employment for that period, and he should therefore be more or less all right. Incidentally, I am reporting now what has been put to me by the Pakistan Society.


He goes before the immigration authorities with his record of contributions for National Insurance and with a certificate from his employer, and he is put through what has been described to me as "a third degree" at Manchester Airport. Having gone through that, he finds that a new British passport is produced and stamped with the date of the interview, which then becomes the date of entry into this country.
Pakistan Society members feel that, as a result, they will have to wait some years before entry into this country has matured to the point where they can get British nationality. That is the second matter which I raise in my letter to the Minister.
Obviously I welcome the Bill because, at the time of the 1973 Bill, I warned that it would be necessary.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: The speech by the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) prompts me to make a brief intervention. I agree with what he said. He expressed it with great feeling. Equally, I have sympathy with the Minister of State and his officials in the difficulty of processing these applications, and I understand the need to extend the time. However, if the time is advanced so far ahead, there is always the danger that officials will say that they have too much on their shoulders and that they will allow applications to pile up.
I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland. We have Pakistanis in the Province, and they are worthy members of the community. They are industrious, and they make a great contribution to Northern Ireland. As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, this is a matter of status, and I join the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) in saying that we welcome Pakistanis and trust that they will play a full part in the life of this country.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: With the leave of the House, perhaps I might reply briefly to the debate.
I am grateful for what the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) said about the staff. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. They come under

considerable criticism from time to time, sometimes from the Minister as well as from hon. Members, but they do their job with great expedition and under very difficult circumstances.
The fear expressed by the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) is unjustified. The Pakistan Unit is a separate unit of the Immigration Department at Croydon. It is housed physically in a different building, and it consists of 125 people who are engaged on this work full time. They do no other kind of work, and they are as anxious as I am to get it finished. There is no question that, because we have extended the time, they will feel that they sit back on their haunches. The work will be done as soon as we can get it done.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) referred to the fears of Pakistanis who go abroad in the period when their applications are being processed. It is an unreal fear, provided that they have settled here with the right to re-entry and that they are not out of the country for more than two years. In those circumstances, they will certainly be allowed back in, even if the period for application has expired. Therefore, I hope that he will be able to reassure those of his constituents, and from the Government Front Bench I certainly reassure any of the Pakistan community, that that will not upset any of their holiday arrangements.
The difficulty arises over getting travel documents to go outside the country and getting passports back. There is some force in the suggestion that these people should be given special priority and be dealt with before they go abroad. I understand that taking people out of the queue and dealing with them would, as a matter of administrative arrangement, extend the time of this whole process. Therefore, the Department normally gives them their passports and resumes consideration of their cases when they return from holiday. Sometimes they are given travel documents. The Department always does its best to help them to have their holidays. Their right to claim citizenship in due course will not be affected.
The hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Redmond) asked about getting a new passport. This is one of the most difficult areas of immigration control.


We all know only too well that the lost passport is often a matter of great interest to the immigration department. Therefore, I cannot give a categorical assurance that, simply because somebody claims to have lost his passport and can show that he has been in the country for some time, he can get a new passport stamped back to the date when he says that he lost it.
This matter must be dealt with delicately. I hope that the Department will always treat it with as much delicacy as possible and will try to avoid any difficulties which may arise. If there are difficulties in any specific case, I shall be happy to look into it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Pavitt.]

Committee tomorrow.

FINANCE [MONEY] (No. 2)

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

11.2 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Dr. John Gilbert): I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session relating to finance, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament which is attributable to amendments of Schedule 6 to the Finance Act 1972 relating to sums payable to or in respect of the presidents or chairmen of value added tax tribunals.
This money resolution is a necessary preliminary to a new clause which I am putting down for consideration in the Standing Committee on the Finance Bill.
The new clause will provide for minor changes relating to value added tax tribunals. These tribunals were set up under the Finance Act 1972 to provide taxpayers with a simple procedure for contesting decisions on value added tax given by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise.
I am glad to say that this system has worked very well. However, the number of appeals which taxpayers have submitted to the tribunals has been considerably below that envisaged when they were set up. As a result, some of the full-time chairmen of VAT tribunals have been

appreciably under-employed. Their valuable talents could be well utilised in other judicial work, and the effect of the proposed Government new clause is to remove the requirement that there must be full-time chairmen of tribunals.
This new clause must make provision for payment of salaries and pensions to part-time chairmen and this is the major reasons why it requires a money resolution. In fact, the total cost of the tribunals will be reduced by these new provisions. The opportunity is also being taken to clarify the provisions for payments to former presidents and chairmen of VAT tribunals, and the new clause will provide for payment of allowances or gratuities instead of, or in addition to, pensions.
I commend this money resolution to the House. There will, of course, be full opportunity to discuss the new clause in Standing Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Pavitt.]

EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

11.4 p.m.

Miss Betty Boothroyd: This debate is really about the business of putting round pegs into round holes, and the cost to the taxpayer of doing so. The subject of matching the skills of a large proportion of this country's work force to suitable and satisfactory employment is very wide and far ranging and should concern all of us as taxpayers. Matching skills and jobs requires a considerable degree of expertise, which I should have thought the best resources of the Department of Employment, as a non-profit-making body and the Government agency, would not find very difficult to master.
The purpose of the debate is to draw attention to the private agency sector and to the lucrative business which has developed over the years when industry, commerce and Government buy back the skills and talents of people who have been trained originally at the expense of the taxpayer. When all is said and done, it is the taxpayer who provides the necessary resources for schools, polytechnics


and colleges of education and, in doing so, provides for the training of students to a level and a degree which enables them then to earn a living.
I should like to make three main points. The first is to show some of the costs involved in this education and training. The second is to show the revenue obtained by the private employment agencies in matching these skills to jobs. The third is to suggest some ways in which the non-profit-making sector—the Department of Employment—might become more competitive as an employment agency.
I want to give the House a few figures. The latest official figures available are for 1972. Those figures show that at a polytechnic it costs £995 per year to educate a student, and at a college of education it costs £612. No one would deny that because of inflation those costs have increased. I have attempted to take the matter a stage further and to work out the cost of training a shorthand typist at a college which is known to me. Based on 10 students per class, for a 36-week course the hourly cost is 53p per student, and this makes a charge on the taxpayer of £667 per student. That is excluding capital costs. The training of a hotel receptionist over a like period is £642, again excluding capital costs. A two-year commercial course works out at 51p per hour and, again excluding capital costs, at £1,284 per student.
Few of us would deny that this sort of investment is worth while. I am sure that it is, though it is at the point of having completed training and when this investment has gone into education that the private agencies seem to step into the picture.
Let us look at the Civil Service, in which 4½ per cent. of the secretaries are engaged on a temporary basis through private agencies. In London alone, 9 per cent. are recruited in that way. Only this week I have been told—it was unsolicited information—that two secretaries working in a London Government office have been employed on a temporary basis for five years.
My limited research does not enable me to work out the cost of training draughtsmen. I am interested here in the subject of training draughtsmen, too. I

suggest, though, that the modest sum of £1,000 per annum, on the basis of the figures that I have already given, is about the required amount. In answer to a Question of mine recently, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Civil Service Department said that although the number of agency-recruited draughtsmen has been falling over the years, 22½ per cent. of all draughtsmen employed by the Civil Service are still recruited through private agencies. Here again is a Government Department buying back with public funds the skills and talents originally developed by public money.
I cannot begin to estimate the staff nationally recruited through agencies, but it must be a sizeable number. The latest figures I have seen were for 1971, when 80 per cent. of all staff were employed through private agencies, leaving only 20 per cent. to the public sector. I hope that my hon. Friend can give some up-to-date figures of the percentage of the labour market that is controlled through the Department of Employment.
I do not want to weary the House at this time of night with many figures, but I want to underline the element of profit made by agencies from fees, especially when the public sector buys back the skills and talents of those who have originally been trained at the taxpayer's expense. I question whether this is a good and proper use of public money.
I am not foolish enough to suggest that the whole of agencies' profits is obtained solely from the public sector. But when an agency such as Brook Street Bureau recorded pre-tax profits last year of just under £2 million, and when Alfred Marks last year recorded pre-tax profits of almost £1 million, it must be seen that there is a sizeable proportion of personnel trained at the taxpayer's expense controlled by private agencies.
It is not my intention tonight to discuss the conditions of the medical profession. particularly the nursing profession, but in 1968 1,500 nurses and midwives were recruited through private agencies, and the figure today is more than 4,000—many of those people trained at public cost. I question whether it is a good and proper use of public money for the National Health Service hospitals to buy back the services of people whom they have probably originally trained.
How do we reverse this position, so that it is the Department of Employment that has the greater control over the labour force when it comes to matching skills to jobs? First, many employment exchanges no longer have the image of the bare room, smelling of stale smoke, and that atmosphere of "wait-aroundness" which I knew in my younger days. Many have changed to attractive premises, where the job hunter has a considerable degree of self-selection and is dealt with in private as an individual with a need for a job that brings satisfaction, as an individual with a human problem. In my constituency of West Bromwich the "job shop", which I believe is the new term, is most attractive. It is a pleasanter place than it was years ago. Let us go still further in improving the Department's local offices in the form of job shops, so that they attract more job-hunters. More resources need to be made available to do that.
Second, would not it be possible to arrange an agency within the Department related to the employment of those in the medical profession, particularly nurses, midwives and radiographers, so that within the Department there is a special department that looks after the medical profession?
Third, would it not be possible for individual National Health Service hospitals to have their own employment bank for temporary staff? I mean temporary staff in the real meaning of the word "temporary"—staff that could be called upon at the convenience of the National Health Service hospitals and themselves.
Fourth, could not a temporary employment bank be used by the Civil Service, particularly in London and some of the larger cities? Surely the number of personnel required on a temporary basis is large enough for the Department to consider that possibility.
Finally, I do not want to restrict employers from shopping around for staff if they want to do so but, at the same time, I suggest that employers might be encouraged to let the employment exchanges know when they have a vacancy and when they need that vacancy filled. With the continuing improvement of the Department's local facilities more recruits would come direct from schools and from training establishments, and the choice

for those wishing to change their jobs would be wider, so that the fee-paying system to private agencies would have difficulty, I hope, in surviving. It would be a fairer deal for the employer, for the job hunter and certainly for the taxpayer, who has for too long bought back the skills and talents developed at his expense.

11.16 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) for giving me a chance to say something about the matters that she has raised. I shall start by talking about employment agencies. I do not have the answers to her questions about various labour markets, but I shall ensure that they are conveyed to her. I shall give attention to what she says regarding medical agency staff and I promise that I shall convey her remarks to the Department of Health and Social Security about the employment of nurses where there are special local arrangements.
There has been a great deal of discussion about the way in which employment agencies have extended their activities in recent years. I am not unaware of the many criticisms that have been made, apart from the ones that my hon. Friend has raised tonight. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment keeps these matters under constant review.
These are not the easiest of times for introducing legislation to effect changes in this sphere. On today's performance it will be difficult to do so in any sphere. We have a ready-made instrument for dealing with many of the abuses which it is alleged employment agencies commit—namely, the Employment Agencies Act. Furthermore, proposals for regulations to control the activities of agencies will be circulated this week. I shall be pleased to ensure that my hon. Friend receives a copy and I shall look forward to her considered views at some convenient time. It is our hope not only that the regulations, when they are laid before the House, will set the standard of conduct to which it is appropriate that both permanent placement agencies and temporary hire businesses should aspire, but that by introducing stringent regulations we shall be able to damp


down the explosion in their numbers which has become apparent in recent years.
Reference is often made to the inflationary impact of temporary hire agencies, and particularly to the pressure for increases in income from permanent staff who are called upon to work alongside temporary staff. I am afraid that one of the reasons for the mushrooming of agencies is the inevitable spin-off of a statutory incomes policy. It affords a loophole for employees who cannot obtain increases in salary and for employers who are not allowed to increase the salaries of their permanent staff.
I have said many times before, but I say it again, that we intend to lay an order ending statutory pay controls by July of this year. My hon. Friend will be aware that we have already set in train a review of nurses' pay. That has been the subject of the same kind of problems—to which my hon. Friend has referred—as exist with the private secretarial temporary hire arrangements.
Apart from the regulatory powers over agencies—I cannot say much more about agencies because we are about to publish the regulations, and I would welcome my hon. Friend's views on the draft regulations—as my hon. Friend rightly says, we also have a responsibility for our own comprehensive employment service. I want to ensure that our service is not merely, in the words of my hon. Friend during Question Time the other day, "more attractive", but the most attractive.
I am determined that our employment service should be second to none. It must command the co-operation—and I stress the word "co-operation"—of employers and workers. By workers, I mean those temporarily unemployed and those in employment. It must aspire to match available jobs and applicants over a wide range of skill and ability going way beyond those occupations which employment officers have been substantially concerned or associated with in the past. It is and will be an indispensable component in servicing growth and economic success by ensuring that industry's ability to succeed and expand is not hampered by shortages of skilled and available labour. Even with unemployment levels which we

do not regard as tolerable, there is frequently a shortage of labour, either of the right skill and experience or in the right place.
The employment service is an essential instrument of manpower policy. We intend that it should be far more than a placing agency but should be able to provide the key to opportunities previously denied to or not sought by men and women alike. We set ourselves the task of achieving and of claiming, in the interests of employers and workers, a far larger share of vacancies that arise.
By separating unemployment benefit work—which will remain with the Department—from the employment service, we shall try to remove from the service the "dole image". We want to get away from the old exchanges' association with the despair and poverty of the prewar legions of unemployed who, of necessity, looked to the exchanges hopefully for work and, in its absence, resigned themselves to collecting the basic means of survival. I hope, therefore, that it will be helpful if I describe the ways in which we are achieving and intend to go on achieving the aims that I have described.
The intention to modernise the employment service was first set out in a consultative document issued in the last days of the last Labour Government as the culmination of a long period of research study and consultation, both within the Department of Employment and elsewhere. Our successors set out in their plans, which followed the consultative document, the aim, which I thoroughly endorse,
to help people choose, train for and get the right jobs; and employers to get the right people as soon as possible.
In November 1972, the Conservative Government announced their decision to set up a Manpower Services Commission outside the Civil Service, to be responsible for the work of the Employment Services Agency and the Training Services Agency. These self-managing agencies were themselves recently established to take over the employment and training services of the Department of Employment. The necessary legislation was enacted in the Employment and Training Act 1973.
The Manpower Services Commission, under an independent chairman and with membership appointed after consultation with the CBI, the TUC and other bodies representing local government and education, will be responsible for the development of manpower policies and the work of the State employment and training services. It will bring flexibility into operation and management, but, more importantly, it will directly associate the employers and work people who use the services with the determination of policy.
Under the leadership of the Chief Executive, Mr. Ken Cooper, the Employment Services Agency is pressing ahead with the modernisation plan. A completely new management structure is being established in 18 employment service areas throughout the country, each under the management of a senior office. Direct chains of command are being set up, operating through district managers to the jobcentres and employment offices in the front line. New systems of performance measurement are being introduced, and everyone in the organisation is accountable for the resources he uses and for the job he does. All the emphasis is on decentralisation, so that initiative and enterprise can flourish to the benefit of people using the service.
Good progress is being made with the programme to set up new style jobcentres to replace the old employment exchanges, some of which were, admittedly, on the dreary side, but hon. Members will appreciate that formidable difficulties must be overcome. In the year ending 31st March 1974, 36 new jobcentres were opened; it is hoped to open about 100 in 1974–75 and to replace the existing employment exchange network completely by the end of the decade. The new jobcentres are well sited and attractively furnished in a contemporary open-plan layout. A three-tier service will be offered to job seekers. First is the "self-service" job information and details of vacancies; secondly, advice in depth by specially trained employment advisers; and, thirdly, specialist counselling through the Occupational Guidance Service. The particular needs of disabled persons and the socially disadvantaged are under examination and we are looking closely at the rôle of our industrial rehabilitation units and at the facilities they provide. We have upgraded a high proportion of employment

work from clerical to executive level, and the new style training of employment advisers is well advanced.
In the short time that I have been a Minister I have visited a number of job-centres. I am extremely impressed by this form of public enterprise and I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend's remarks about the centre in her constituency. They do a credit to public enterprise. We are greatly encouraged by the initial success of jobcentres which have been opened so far. During the first four months of this year registrations in them increased by 31 per cent., vacancies notified by 42 per cent., and placings by 57 per cent. We are going out—if I may use a commercial term in this context—for a big share of the market.
The Occupational Guidance Service has now developed to a stage where nation-wide coverage is provided through a network of 45 units in the main centres of population. It is staffed by 170 carefully selected officers with experience of employment work who have been given intensive training in guidance techniques, together with instruction in the study of occupations, under the supervision of the Department's occupational psychologists. These trained occupational guidance officers are supported by a referral service to consultant psychologists where they feel the need for a second opinion. This continuing contact with professional consultants and the allocation of time for regular and systematic job studies provides for a continuing development of their individual competence.
At the present the service is dealing with more than 46,000 cases each year. Among these are people who have yet to enter employment or who have made a false start to their career; people returning to the employment field after a break; and those who, whether of necessity or their own volition, wish to consider a change in their type of work or career.
The restyled Professional and Executive Recruitment Service was launched 15 months ago and has already made a considerable impact on the recruitment market dealing with higher level appointments. This unique nation-wide computer-assisted selection service has gained a reputation for speed of operation and the quality of candidates it produces. Considerable importance is attached to


these two key features, which are regarded as essential to encourage repeated and increasing use of the PER service by employers. Each employer's need is handled individually by a trained recruitment consultant, who is able to advise a client, on the basis of his knowledge of the supply and demand position, how the assignment should be handled to provide the best result. In addition to identifying the best available candidates from the PER service's records, arrangements are being made to an increasing extent for the appointment to be advertised simultaneously in the national, provincial or specialist Press in order to provide the employer with a wider choice from which to make his final selection.
Arising out of the Employment and Training Act 1973, the Employment Services Agency has assumed responsibility for providing an effective employment service for young people—16 and 17 year olds—who choose to seek its help. The service seeks to co-operate with the careers service of the local education authorities to ensure that young people have the opportunity of using the service most suited to their needs.
I turn to the new and advanced working methods now being employed. We are introducing new methods and equipment into our offices. In London there is a computer-based job bank, whereby offices in the Greater London area report outstanding vacancies to the computer which provides a vacancy list print-out by the following morning. In London, too, plans are going ahead on the CAPITAL project for on-line computer-aided matching of vacancies and job seekers. In major conurbations other than London facsimile reproduction equipment has been installed which allows instantaneous circulation of vacancy details of registrant particulars throughout the network of local offices. In each region employment information centres have been established to exchange job information and to facilitate the placing of the mobile registrant. The improved employment transfer scheme provides financial assistance for workers moving to employment in another part of the country and our information service covers employment, housing, education and amenities generally in the area of the prospective job.
Our new technique of providing vacancy information by "self-service" has been most successful and has appealed particularly to women. "Self-service" for those needing information only allows more time for expert help by the employment adviser for those who need it.
A comprehensive professional marketing programme has been prepared to improve the standing of the service and to increase our labour market penetration. It is our aim to provide services which are more responsive to the needs of employers and work people where they want them and in the way they want them. For example, the specialist service in the hotel and catering industry has been enlarged and improved and special efforts have been made to meet the labour requirements of North Sea oil employers.
A series of experiments to test the possibility of developing local labour market intelligence has recently been evaluated and it has been decided to extend the scheme gradually to all areas where the local labour market is active enough to warrant it. The system is designed to improve the collection and interpretation of labour market statistics and information so as to give a clearer indication of future manpower needs locally.
The current research programme covers projects to assess the use made of our service by employers and workers and what they feel about it, and also the areas where a more effective contribution is needed. There are plans for longer-term research into the characteristics of major labour markets.
I understand that my hon. Friend is particularly concerned that more should be done to encourage employers to notify vacancies to our office. We take this point. Compulsory notification of vacancies has been considered from time to time, but experience here and in other countries shows that it is more likely to result in bureaucratic procedures and abortive paper work than an improved service. We are confident that the more effective service we shall be offering employers will persuade them in their own interests to let us know about their vacancies. We appreciate that they may wish to advertise in the newspaper but nothing is lost if they notify us at the same time. In the launching of job-centres our marketing campaign is aimed


particularly at local employers and an increase in the number of vacancy notifications is a prominent feature of our annual national targets.
It is difficult in a short speech to cover adequately all the various aspects of the work of the employment service, and the intense activities now under way. I hope, however, that what I have said will give some idea of the progress we are making towards achieving our aim and of the priority which we in the Department

attach to the public employment service of which we can already be proud and of which in the future, with the plans that I have outlined, we shall be even prouder. It will be not just a competitor but a leader of agencies of this kind.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Twelve o'clock.